By Jeffrey Scott
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
SENOIA, Ga. — A Senoia police officer who apparently targeted Hispanic drivers and robbed them during traffic stops was arrested Wednesday morning after he was caught stealing hundreds of dollars from an undercover GBI agent the night before, authorities said.
The officer, Charles Patrick Morgan, 40, was being held in Coweta County Jail. He has been charged with three counts of robbery and one count of violation of oath by a public officer.
Morgan is the latest Georgia police officer to have been accused of stealing from Hispanic drivers. In August, former Cedartown police Officer Douglas Damiano, 37, was sentenced in federal court to more than two years in prison for taking money from Hispanic motorists during traffic stops.
In Morgan’s case, jail workers first reported their suspicions to the GBI in August after two Hispanic men complained that the officer allegedly had taken money from their wallets.
GBI spokesman John Bankhead said Wednesday that Morgan appeared to have singled out Hispanic drivers in Senoia, a city of about 2,700 people about 35 miles south of downtown Atlanta.
“He knew Hispanics typically don’t complain because sometimes there’s a problem — they are illegal [immigrants],” said Bankhead, who declined to release the identities of the two Hispanic drivers.
GBI Special Agent Rodney Wall said “there is no indication” the motorists were in the country illegally, but the victims’ legal status was not within the scope of the GBI investigation.
“We don’t ask that [legal status] question,” Wall said. " We were investigating a police officer accused of robbing people.”
According to Bankhead, Morgan asked for the drivers’ wallets after pulling them over or assisting taking them into custody. At some point, he allegedly took their money. Only later did the drivers discover the money was missing.
When the officer took several hundred dollars from the undercover agent Tuesday, he left $100 in the wallet, Wall said.
Because investigators suspected Morgan was singling out Hispanics, they said, they put a Hispanic officer on the case.
The officer “put himself in a situation where we believed he would be stopped,” said Bankhead, without giving details. The first time the officer went out, Morgan pulled him over.
Bankhead said that Morgan took about $1,500 in the three robberies, including the money he took from the undercover agent.
Senoia chief of police Ollita Bennett was on vacation and could not be reached for comment.
Copyright 2007 Atlanta Journal-Constitution