Family, colleagues mourn veteran Manchester cop who passed suddenly
MANDEVILLE, MANCHESTER:
FOUR DAYS after the sudden passing of veteran Manchester cop Sergeant Garfield Morgan, colleagues, friends and relatives are still reeling from the shock of their loss.
Morgan, who spent more than 30 years in the Jamaica Constabulary Force, drove on to the compound of the Mandeville Police Station on Tuesday morning. When he did not exit the vehicle, checks were made and he was found unresponsive. He was rushed to the Mandeville Regional Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
His 104-year-old aunt, Daisy Morgan, told The Gleaner that it has been difficult trying to adjust to life without Morgan, with whom she had a close relationship.
“I took Garfield [as a boy] with me to Port Maria, where I was teaching at the time, and he spent four years with me. He took the Common Entrance Exam and then came back to Manchester to be with his mother and father ... ,” she recalled.
The centenarian said Morgan would spend time with her each holiday and when she retired and returned to Manchester, their houses were a stone’s throw apart.
“Garfield was such a quiet and jovial man,” she reflected. “I can’t even imagine how his three children and his wife must be feeling.”
The news of Morgan’s death was also a great shock to Daisy.
“On Tuesday, when it happened, I saw people moving about and I knew something was not right,” she told The Gleaner. Nobody wanted to tell me what was happening and asked my sister to pray with me and then tell me the news. I can’t even describe the feeling I had when I heard.”
Daisy said Garfield’s parents live overseas and fear they may not even be able to lay their son to rest as they would like due to travel restrictions amid the global coronavirus pandemic.
“They can’t come to Jamaica now and I don’t know what will happen, but I am hoping it can be worked out,” she said.
One of Morgan’s colleagues, Det Cpl Andrew Spencer, said the veteran patrol cop always took his job seriously.
“He was the consummate professional – always calm, quite focused and a very knowledgeable officer,” Spencer said. “He was always quick to impart his knowledge of the profession to the younger members and dealt with the public with the highest level of professionalism.”