Jury selection begins in trial for Sluganski’s accused killer
Johnathan Morris is accused of killing the McKeesport officer in 2023.
By PAULA REED WARD
TribLive
Jury selection began Monday for the man accused of killing McKeesport police Officer Sean Sluganski nearly four years ago.
Johnathan Morris, 34, is charged with criminal homicide, two counts of attempted homicide, two counts of aggravated assault and firearms counts stemming from the February 2023 shooting.
His trial is expected to begin Nov. 9 before Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Bruce Beeemer and last three weeks.
The court is expected to seat 12 jurors and four alternates.
Allegheny County Police detectives said Morris killed Sluganski Feb. 6, 2023, on Grandview Avenue in McKeesport just after noon when he and Officer Chuck Thomas responded to a domestic dispute.
Morris’ mother, Candace Tyler, called police that morning to her house on Wilson Street telling them that her son was having a “PTSD episode.”
When Sluganski, 32, responded to the house for the call, Morris was already gone.
Sluganski, who was on foot, spotted Morris minutes later. At 12:21 p.m., Sluganski radioed Allegheny County dispatch to tell them that Morris was walking on Sumac Street near Craig Street.
Four minutes later. Sluganski said Morris was running.
Thomas, who was in a patrol vehicle assisting, then radioed that shots had been fired.
“’Got shot in the face, shot in the face,’” Thomas shouted, according to archived dispatch recordings. “’Get me some help. Get some help, I’m hit.’” Detectives said Thomas returned fire, striking Morris in the right leg.
Eventually, Morris was arrested in a nearby parking lot.
Morris claimed in a police interview after his arrest that Thomas tried to hit him with his police car, so Morris jumped on its hood. Morris claimed he saw Thomas pull his weapon, so Morris rolled off the hood and headed across Grandview, police said.
Morris then said he pulled a gun from his waistband, racked the slide and aimed it at Thomas to scare him, then fired two shots.
However, police said Morris fired six shots.
Thomas was shot in the face and wounded.
Morris, who was shot in the leg by Thomas, was arrested by other officers in a nearby parking lot.
Sluganski died a short time later at the hospital. He had been shot in the torso and just under his left clavicle.
Morris told officers when they interviewed him that he didn’t remember shooting Sluganski but he agreed he must have, they recounted at his preliminary hearing.
He also told detectives that just before his encounter with the police that day, he asked two females in a car to record his interactions with the officers because he feared they were out to get him.
After receiving treatment for his gunshot wound, Morris was taken to Torrance State Hospital for a mental health evaluation.
Originally, Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. filed notice that he would seek the death penalty against Morris. But in April, the prosecutor’s office reversed course.
It was the sixth time in the three previous years the office had backed off initial plans to seek capital punishment.
In Morris’ case, the DA’s office had received the defendant’s psychiatric records just days earlier.
Defense attorneys Carmen Robinson and Elbert Gray filed notice in September 2024 that they planned to pursue an insanity defense, citing their client’s diagnoses of schizophrenia, chronic post-traumatic stress disorder with paranoia and hypervigilance.
Morris served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 2013 to 2018 and was deployed to Afghanistan, the defense has said.
He developed PTSD and received treatment in the military. He was honorably discharged.
On the day of the shooting, Morris’ mother — a former McKeesport police officer — told dispatchers her son was being aggressive toward her, investigators said.
Less than a month before the shooting, McKeesport police had been called to Morris’ home for a welfare check.
On Jan. 13, 2023, they got a call from an Escambia County, Florida, sheriff’s deputy. Security personnel from the Navy Federal Credit Union in Pensacola had called them because Morris had been on the phone with the credit union and made threats to go on a shooting spree.
Officers went to the home that afternoon, but no one answered the door.
