After being placed on administrative leave on May 15 as an internal investigation was opened, Morton Police Chief Roger Morningstar tendered his resignation on Friday, June 2, according to the city.
Morton Mayor Dan Mortensen remained mum on the cause behind Morningstar’s leave, but was confident the now two-person department would survive.
“We will advertise for that position and move forward,” Mortensen said. “Morton Police Department is not going anywhere.”
Mortensen said there will be more information released on the investigation when it is completed. Morningstar was hired in December 2016, the same time Mortensen, the previous police chief, retired.
Asked whether there was a rough timeline for the investigation, the mayor said, “No there isn’t because we’re somewhat reliant on other agencies for information and we don’t know what their timelines are.”
He did not detail the agencies he’s working with, but said, “It’s not necessarily law enforcement agencies. It’s banks and records and those kinds of things.”
The neighboring City of Mossyrock and the Town of Pe Ell — which is farther from Morton than any other Lewis County community — both contract with Morton for police services. With Morningstar’s resignation, Mortensen said the mayors of both are aware that services may be affected, and that the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office was stepping in for help.
“The (other two mayors) are willing and supportive of our efforts to make that correction,” he said.
The police department now has just two full-time employees, one of whom is now in charge, Mortensen said, and a few reserve officers. He wasn’t sure how many reserve officers were active as of a Monday morning call, but said it was fewer than five.
Asked if there was anything else he’d like the public to know, Mortensen said, “We’re just moving forward.”
The mayor previously told The Chronicle Morningstar being placed on leave was not related to investigations into his alleged affiliations with far-right groups.
Morningstar is an outspoken figure in the local Republican party who has had recorded run-ins with far-right groups such as Patriot Prayer.
In 2020, the Washington Three-Percenters, defined by the Anti Defamation League as an anti-government extremist militia group, said they were loosely organizing at a Morton counter-protest against Black Lives Matter under Morningstar’s direction, though Morningstar denied their claim.
The mayor also previously said the investigation was not related to citizen claims Morningstar delayed an investigation into a rape case in Morton which reportedly took place in August 2022. At the time, Morningstar claimed his office was “diligently” investigating the incident.
According to The Chronicle’s archives, Morningstar was in the Air Force from 1996 to 1999, when he started working for the Arizona Department of Corrections and serving in the Army National Guard as a military police officer. He worked for a tribal police department in Fallon, Nevada, from 2007 to 2012. His father, uncle and grandfather were all police officers in Arizona.
In the 1990s, his father was stationed at Naval Air Station Whidbey. He worked for the Quinault tribal police and then the Stafford Creek Corrections Center in Aberdeen before coming to Morton.
