A tragic shooting outside a Taco Bell in Cincinnati has led to the arrest of a former employee who police say fatally shot his manager just one day after being fired.
Jonathan Morris, 21, was arrested on October 15 by the Cincinnati Police Department’s Homicide Unit and Fugitive Apprehension Squad. He’s accused of killing Ryan Johnson, 32, a Taco Bell manager at the Gest Road location in Queensgate, shortly after midnight on August 29.
According to police, Johnson was found in the restaurant’s parking lot with multiple gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Family members told WCPO 9 Cincinnati that Johnson had been on his break when the shooting happened. He was a father of seven.
“He was just at work,” his aunt Ebony Denton told reporters. “Ryan loved to be there for everybody. He’d give you the shirt off his back. He always had that big, cheesy smile. That’s how I remember him.”
Authorities say Morris had been fired from his job at Taco Bell the day before the shooting, though the reasons for his termination have not been made public. He appeared in court on October 16 before Hamilton County Municipal Judge Tyrone Yates.
“This was senseless,” Assistant Prosecutor David Hickenlooper said in court, speaking on behalf of Johnson’s family. “They are devastated. We believe he was only trying to help.”
Johnson’s grandmother addressed the court directly, asking that no bond be granted. “He killed my grandson. He doesn’t need to be out,” she said. “He took a life.”
Morris’s public defender told the judge that he has no money for bail and noted he had only one previous contact with the legal system, which resulted in an acquittal. The attorney also said Morris is the caretaker of his 1-year-old son.
Judge Yates set bond at $500,000 and ordered that Morris would be under 24/7 monitoring if released. “Prosecutors don’t set the bonds. Judges set the bail amount,” the judge explained in court.
The Cincinnati Police Department, Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office, and Taco Bell have not yet commented publicly on the case.
Put him away from society
Does a Taco Bell job warrant killing a person over? His public defender claiming that ge hasnt had any prior problems with the legal system, is pathetic. So this POS just graduate to murder without being a prior criminal, and that is suppose to somehow excuse it? This loser has no money for bail per the public defender, but somehow managed to buy a gun.