A dashcam video of Mount Vernon Police Chief Robert K. Morgan from a year ago, in which he reprimanded a driver for following him too closely, resurfaced again in early June as a post on the Mount Vernon Ohio Talk Facebook group.
The video was originally posted by TikTok user @dashcamvids81, an account that posts only dashcam videos, and then shared by an anonymous member of the local Facebook group. The video, titled “Chief of Police must have been having a bad day,” had nearly 400,000 views.
“Think you can ride my rear end a little closer?” Morgan asks a motorist he pulled over.
“I’m sorry about that,” the motorist responds.
“I get it that you are in a hurry, but I am driving the speed limit,” Morgan replies.
The speed limit on that section of road was 25 mph, Morgan said. Morgan also warned the motorist he could be ticketed before the incident ended.
“Do I need to call one of my guys over to write you a $140 ticket?” Morgan said in the video.
The video was posted anonymously to Mount Vernon Ohio Talk’s Facebook Page. Claims that he was in a personal vehicle were wrong, the chief confirmed.
“I was in my unmarked city vehicle, which is equipped with red and blue emergency lights and sirens and radios and everything else. And I was in uniform. I was on duty because we were working on a project that night,” he told the Mount Vernon News. “And I took what I believe was the appropriate action.”
“Looks like a red flag cop alert to me. It seemed close to being road rage by cop to me,” Lynn White Slone said on Facebook before comments not being allowed on the post.
In his Facebook post, Raymond Ross had a different perception of the incident, though most commenters disagreed.
“He was quite courteous. The driver thought he was being Kool until them lights came on. Also, he would lose in court with this evidence. He recorded his own crime. And posted himself getting caught lol,” Ross said in his comment.
Morgan said he believes his actions followed departmental policy. He has been Chief of Police for Mount Vernon since 2019.
In 2021 Morgan and the Mount Vernon Police announced reforms to the city’s policing. Those reforms include rewriting existing policies and implementing new ones on topics such as the use of force, vehicle pursuits and bias-based policing.
“Our old system is a little tired and a little bit unreliable at this point,” Morgan said at the time.
The department noted it was working on improving accountability through the adoption of new body cameras and cruiser cameras, as well as computer-based software for easier video redaction and release.
