The Associated Press
February 02, 2001, Friday
Copyright 2001 Charleston Newspapers
The Charleston Gazette
February 02, 2001, Friday
(TALLAHASSEE, Fla.) -- A college baseball player from West Virginia who was badly injured when a man fleeing police crashed into his van, killing a teammate, has filed a negligence suit against the Leon County Sheriff’s office.
Mark Morgan of West Virginia filed suit in Leon County Circuit Civil Court on Wednesday and seeks unspecified damages.
Albert Williams was fleeing police in March 1999 when he slammed into a van full of baseball players from Bluefield State College. Morgan was driving the van.
Williams had been stopped earlier on a drug charge, and was fleeing police, who found 28 baggies of powder cocaine in his car.
The team was on a weeklong baseball tour of the South and had just arrived in Tallahassee. They were en route to their hotel when Williams slammed his car into their van at about 1 a.m. as they were exiting Interstate 10.
Morgan was thrown about 20 feet after the crash, suffering numerous broken ribs, a broken hip, collarbone and shoulder blade.
The crash killed one of Morgan’s teammates, 19-year-old Shannon Stewart. His mother filed a similar suit against the sheriff’s office last year. That case is still pending.
Williams was convicted of second-degree murder in Shannon Stewart’s death in March 1999 was sentenced in May to life in prison.
Sheriff’s spokesman Deputy David Gilmore did not immediately comment on the suit.