Baltimore Man Gets 70 Years for Penn North Carryout Shooting, Robbery

A Baltimore jury convicted LaForrest Morgan of attempted second-degree murder and multiple firearms charges on March 25, then watched a judge hand him 70 years for a confrontation that started across a carryout counter on Pennsylvania Avenue and ended with a man shot twice in the stomach and robbed of his sneaker bag.

The sentence requires Morgan to serve the first 25 years without any possibility of parole. No parole board. No early release consideration. A mandatory quarter-century before the question even comes up. The charges that drove the number: attempted second-degree murder, possession of a firearm after a prior conviction, and additional weapons offenses.

That middle charge is doing significant structural work here. Court records show Morgan was convicted of manslaughter in 2002 and possession with intent to distribute in 1999. Both convictions barred him from legally owning a firearm. When he pulled a handgun inside No. 1 Chinese Carryout on June 28, 2024, around 9 p.m., he was already committing a separate felony before he fired a single round. Prosecutors built a prohibited-possessor charge on top of the attempted murder, and that stack is a large part of why a non-fatal shooting results in a sentence of this length.

The incident began as a physical altercation between Morgan and a 29-year-old man inside the restaurant. Morgan drew the handgun and shot the victim twice in the stomach, then attempted a third round that missed. He grabbed the victim's blue and orange Air Jordan bag and its contents and left the scene with the property, according to court records.

The victim survived. State's Attorney Ivan J. Bates called that outcome a matter of luck, not circumstance. "It is nothing short of a miracle that the victim survived this blatant shooting," Bates said in a statement. Bates credited Baltimore Police detectives and his office's Gun Violence Enforcement Division with building the case.

Investigators identified Morgan through surveillance footage collected from inside the carryout and interviews with witnesses present during the shooting. Two separate Baltimore City police officers who recognized Morgan from prior arrests confirmed his identity after reviewing the footage.

Seventy years for a non-fatal shooting is a number worth examining. Morgan's 2002 manslaughter conviction and his 1999 drug conviction made him a prohibited possessor the moment he touched the gun. The attempted murder charge added the primary weight. And the robbery, committed on a victim already bleeding from two gunshot wounds to the stomach in a neighborhood carryout at 9 p.m. on a Friday, gave prosecutors a case that fit precisely the profile the Gun Violence Enforcement Division was built to prosecute. The first 25 years are mandatory. Morgan will be well into his sentence before parole is even a conversation.