The Unwarranted Perjury of Austin Morris

[XLFD]

Austin Morris has been the School Resource Officer (SRO) serving the Ludington Area School District (LASD) since September 2021.  Our readers may remember his name from our 2019 article Ludington City Hall Loan Scheme, where he was the beneficiary of a no-repayment-necessary loan from Ludington City Hall, despite the fact that it was unlawful and unconstitutional for the City of Ludington to serve as a lending institution.  

The loan's purpose was to provide Morris with funds for furthering his training in law enforcement with the understanding that he would become a member of the Ludington Police Department (LPD) during and at least two years after his police academy education.  If he did not, he would be required to repay that unconstitutional loan.  His service to the LPD was good enough to reward him with the position of SRO following the retirement of Chad Skiba from that position.

Trusting a 24 year old officer with little practical experience to handle the complex role of SRO was a risky decision by the school district and the LPD.  There may be benefits in being more able to relate to and engage with the student population, but these positives can quickly become negatives, as the internet is littered with stories of inappropriate sexual conduct of SROs, as in these recent (the first two months of this year) incidents in Auburn NY and Newport WA and Augusta KY.  A young officer's inexperience can also lead to questionable arrests and assaults on students in an environment where the basic individual rights of students are often ignored under the aegis of campus safety.  Such recurring themes make many in the public question the value of putting police officers in our schools.

LASD SRO Austin Morris has not, to our knowledge, fallen into the traps mentioned, but he apparently has taken courses of action that bely the trust that the school, the police, and the public have placed on him by dint of his position.  The Ludington Torch will look at the part he played in a recent incident and how he has reportedly misused the Law Enforcement Information Network (LEIN) and more distressingly, substantively lied on a sworn affidavit in order to gain a search warrant, whose fruit ultimately led to an arrest that would not have otherwise happened.

Multiple FOIA requests have been sent to both the LASD and the LPD to investigate and corroborate what happened here, The Ludington Torch has also asked administrators from both agencies for clarifications when the record was conflicting or inconclusive; their cooperation in this quest for truth is duly noted.  This article will concentrate solely on Officer Morris' violation of the law and how it led to an injustice, another article or two will look at the other issues that came up and how school officials failed in many respects.

The tragedy begins quietly at the OJ DeJonge Middle School on the morning of November 17, 2021 shortly after 8:00 with a boy talking to his friend about an airsoft gun that he is interested in getting for Christmas.  This gets reported to Principal Mike Hart who detains the student at the office, a detainment that would last over 5 hours as school officials investigated and interrogated the allegations made; it is unclear what actions SRO Morris took during these hours after being notified, as his bodycam shows that he took the boy home at 2:07 PM (aka 1407 hours):

Both the school's report and Morris' report do not indicate why the detention at the office was required for so long of a period, with Morris' report suggesting that he arrived at 9 AM and cleared 38 minutes later:

The school's investigation has no mention of times at all, it just indicates that before the student was taken home, four witnesses were called to the office for questioning, one was brought back again for clarification, these student statements were inconsistent among themselves and with the student's own statement.  To be safe, the school desired a 'threat assessment:

One can find out what a school threat assessment entails by looking on the internet, it's a policy that has replaced 'zero tolerance', which was a disaster, and one of the hallmarks of any threat assessment is that the school and relevant police agencies develop threat assessment procedures that are clearly communicated to staff and families.  LASD Superintendent Kyle Corlett verified the school has no written threat assessment procedures, LPD Captain Steve Wietrzykowski who has drafted hundreds of pages of procedures for the LPD, admits they have nothing regarding these types of procedures.

Both the school (in the paragraph above) and Morris indicate that part of any threat assessment is a warrantless search of a threat suspect's home:

MARK is the student's father.  Had the school or LPD developed a threat assessment process, like this one, maybe they would have figured out that no actual threats were ever made in this incident (which will be further developed in succeeding articles) and that searching the student's home is not an endorsed routine, especially when the parents are otherwise cooperative and understand the situation.  

Both agencies, however, were firmly intent on getting inside the student's home as part of an undeveloped process for a non-existent threat.  From a 11-24-2021 letter from Principal Hart to the interim superintendent:

Morris 'obtained a search warrant to conduct the threat assessment' according to Hart who led the investigation which uncovered a basketball and a bible among the student's backpack and belongings.  The problem was that absent any threats and any lethal weapon mentioned by any witness, how could Officer Morris procure a search warrant for the home?

He found a way, by inventing his own incident.  In his follow-up report, he mentions that he hears something from the assistant principal Abby Schaperkotter the next morning:

If this sounds suspiciously convenient, it is.  In the school's report, which covers events during November 17-19, this conversation with MARK and Abby's relation to the SRO is not mentioned.  I attempted repeatedly to get a statement from Abby regarding whether this conversation ever took place before I received a reply back from the superintendent saying that he was forwarded my inquiry and that "We cannot give you any additional information regarding this incident other than the information we already gave you."

That seems like an admission that such a phone conversation never happened, but this was actually confirmed by talking with MARK and finding out that he had made a call that morning to talk with Principal Hart.  Hart was unavailable at the time he called, as reflected by the short duration of his call, fielded by Abby Schaperkotter.  MARK emphatically states that all he did was return Hart's earlier call, and only told his assistant that he would call back later when he was available.  The school's report indicates that Hart called him after that, while excepting the alleged admission promoted by SRO Morris. 

Temporal physics also works against Morris' claim as to how a conversation between these parties could include such an admission and last under a minute.  Not to mention why would MARK make such an admission to a veritable stranger out of thin air, when the school's report does not indicate there was any questioning for this effective 'missed-call'.  

My initial FOIA response from the LPD additionally aroused suspicion.  They shared with me the two reports made by Morris and his edited bodycam footage, but suspiciously they left out the search warrant affidavit and the warrant itself.  When I requested this later I found out why they may have been reluctant to share this piece of fiction.

Among the nine paragraphs are the following statements sworn to under oath before the magistrate Glenn Jackson, who signed it without reservation, with factual refutations following:

2)  "... (student) made comments about bringing a gun to school."

Morris conveniently left off "airsoft" to describe the toy gun, nor does he relate that the student repeatedly denied ever making a statement about bringing one to school

3)  "Affiant is aware that a threat assessment includes searching the home where the student resides for any means or signs that the student would commit a school shooting.  For this particular case, affiant's threat assessment included going into (student's) home to conduct a search for weapons."

As noted, neither the school or LPD have protocols for threat assessment, especially where absent any threat of violence or absent of lethal weapons, there is no legitimate threat.  This is a minor prevarication compared to:

5)  On 11/18/2021 at 0832 hours, affiant was informed by OJ DeJonge Assistant Principal Abby Schaperkotter that MARK was denying consent to search his residence because he is a convicted felon and did not want to get in trouble for possessing a firearm."

Notice that Morris doesn't mention a phone convo between Abby and MARK took place where this was related, and with good reason, it never happened.  It was a mechanism manufactured by Morris in order to look up MARK on the LEIN database, where he found a marijuana conviction that happened way back in 2008, which would not be criminal with Michigan's current marijuana laws. 

Willfully or intentionally stating a falsehood as a fact on an affidavit is an act of perjury.

Morris would also emphasize that Schaperkotter dictated that the student would not be allowed to return to school until a threat assessment was completed in the eighth paragraph, signaling that both he and Schaperkotter would do anything necessary to carry out their version of what a threat assessment should be.  In paragraph six, he relates what he found when he used the Law Enforcement Information Network (LEIN) to look at MARK's background.

MARK talked openly and transparently with SRO Morris on his porch when Morris dropped his son off, only balking at the home inspection because he admitted the house was a mess, admitted to a hunting gun.  There was no reason for SRO Morris to look up MARK on the LEIN, he was not suspected of any crime at that point. 

Austin Morris knew this too, that's why he invented MARK's admission to his accomplice, Assistant Principal Schaperkotter, to get that elusive rationale.  It seems reasonable to infer that Morris justified the use of LEIN to look up MARK's history by creating the bogus phone call between other parties.  This creative way to get around the system allowed him to search the man's home and find that his other (grown up) son had several hunting rifles in his gun safe.  Misuse of the LEIN is a misdemeanor the first time it's done, filing a false police report is a felony, and the perjury on Morris sworn affidavit is a felony.  

Because of Austin Morris crimes, MARK has been sentenced to 90 days of jail and over $700 in fees.  He was initially charged with two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony by an overzealous local prosecutor just for having his adult son's hunting rifles at his home, but those charges were dismissed in a plea agreement.  

The ramifications of this incident are scary.  Austin Morris serves in one of the biggest positions of trust in Ludington, the school's resource officer, but he belays that trust by lying on a police report, lying on an affidavit, and misusing the LEIN in order to manufacture serious crimes against a parent.  All this while misrepresenting in grand fashion the policy of the school and his own police agency, and equating an airsoft gun with a regular gun in order to secure an unwarranted search warrant.  

Austin Morris is not the person you want serving as a school resource officer, just like Austin Billings is not the person you want serving on the fire department.  We need to expect more from our public service providers.

[XLFD]

I did notice the number of views, atypically to the right of the bell curve of viewership of our articles, and impressive when a lot of people should be more worried about World War III than a resource offer in a small-town school.  If this hadn't been so blatantly bungled on many fronts by the school and their resource officer, I would have liked to let it go.  But a kid has been suspended for a year, his father thrown in jail and fined, and it's all because there is no process and the officials (from the school, the LPD and from the prosecutor's office) hold these guys responsible for their own errors, fabrications, and desire to be credited with stopping the next school shooting.

I appreciate you reserving judgment on this as I have only dropped pieces of the larger puzzle-- snippets of the police reports and the school's investigation, transcribed paragraphs of the warrant affidavit, and mere hints of what the bodycam videos illustrate.  I haven't done this to be tricky, I've done so in order to reserve some of the mystery before the rest of the story comes out in the next installment. 

As they would often say at the middle of the two-part Batman series episodes from the mid-sixties:  "But wait, the worst is yet to come."

[Freedom Seeker]

I loved the closing comment of intrigue in the Batman shows.  Here's to hoping the good guys win in this real-life fight of alleged corruption.  That's awful that the young student has been suspended for a year if he was merely discussing what he hoped to get for Christmas.  And throwing his father in jail with fines... I would hope he can get a powerful civil rights attorney and add to the burden of Ludington school debt to teach them a real-life lesson.