Steve Mensing, Editor
♦ Donald Morgan 44, ISIS follower, gun runner, and convicted of shooting up Las Palmas Restaurant in Salisbury in 1996, founded the Islamic Center in Salisbury, N.C. in 2013 according to NBC. The Islamic Center of Salisbury is housed in a former variety store across from Salisbury High School.
Mr. Morgan, once a bodybuilder in Salisbury, a military school student, a former Rowan County Sheriff’s deputy working in the county prison, and former convict, admitted to being a devout follower of Allah and on June 29th he twittered his allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The later pledge is not likely to endear him to fellow Americans since the two recent ISIS beheadings.
From a recent NBC report on Mr. Morgan connection with ISIS: “Most crucial in Morgan’s case may have been the order and discipline that he says he found in practicing Islam and in ISIS’s interpretation of the Muslim faith and its determination to spread it in the form of a caliphate. “My reason for the support of ISIS is because they’ve proven time and time again to put Islamic law as the priority and the establishment of an Islamic state as the goal”
Mr. Morgan has a lengthy history of self-defeating life choices. Here is the Rowan Free Press account of the Mr. Morgan shooting up the Las Palmas Restaurant in Salisbury, N.C.: “Salisbury, N.C. is once again in the news for a shooting, this one taking place in 1996 when ex-Rowan County Sheriff’s Special Deputy Donald Ray Morgan, alleged ISIS Terrorist Group Sympathizer, shot up “Las Palmas Restaurant” on what is now Brick Street. At the time Donald Ray Morgan sent about 100 Las Palmas Restaurant patrons into a panic when he fired three 9mm Glock rounds through a glass door into the bar area. One patron was nicked in the neck by shattered glass. A friend, eating in the restaurant, pulled her sister down behind the bar area when she heard a glock’s pop–pop-pop and patrons screaming as they dove for cover on the floor.
Donald Ray Morgan, 26, at the time and living on 3121 Hodge Street in Rowan County, wound up being charged that night carrying a concealed weapon and discharging a weapon into an occupied space. His brother Lonny Richard Morgan, 21, got charged with carrying a concealed weapon, a Tarus 9mm handgun.
The Morgan brothers arrived at Las Palmas that Saturday night at around 11 p.m. Big brother Donald Ray Morgan had just been kicked out of a rock concert in Charlotte called: “The Weenie Roast”. Alleged to be extremely high on his arrival at Las Palmas, the future alleged ISIS terrorist sympathizer, made strange requests of the bar patrons. “Have you ever bitten anyone until they bled?”
Donald Ray Morgan became more agitated when Las Palmas refused to sell the brothers alcohol. Mr. Morgan with little warning sprang at a patron and began choking him before employees subdued him and took the now international celebrity outside. Right away Mr. Morgan threatened to return with a gun. It didn’t take long. The Morgan brothers returned with Donald Ray Morgan shooting through Las Palmas’s glass door while brother Lonny fired into the air.
The Salisbury Police soon arrived. The Morgan Brothers were carted off to the magistrate’s office where he admitted he fired into the restaurant. His bond was set at $20,000 dollars while his brother got a $1,000 bond for their Saturday night spree in the Bury.
Donald Ray Morgan, now 44 and an alleged ISIS Terrorist Group sympathizer, was arrested on August 2nd at NYC’s J.F.K. International Airport after arriving from Frankfurt, Germany. Mr. Morgan was charged with illegal weapons possessions in North Carolina. Federal prosecutors said Morgan was involved in weapons trafficking in violation of his probation from a previous felony conviction. Morgan’s online activities, including Twitter “Tweets” in support of the ISIS Terrorist network, drew Federal attention. Prosecutors believe Morgan may be more of an “aspirational supporter”.
Mr. Morgan is in route to Greensboro, N.C. where he faces the weapons charge.”
Mr. Morgan’s first exposure to Islam was a University course titled “Contemporary Islam”. His actual conversion to Islam did not occur until years later after abbreviated stints with the National Guard, the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office and a two year pause in prison for shooting up Las Palmas.
After his release from prison and working as a car agency finance manager in Salisbury, Morgan took up bodybuilding and married Tangela Horne in 2001. They had a son together. The marriage ended in 2007. In 2012 Morgan underwent a dramatic conversion to Islam prior to Ramadan. Islam became an all consuming way of life. His Facebook posts became extreme: calling out Israel and infidels. He wore traditional Muslim garb, grew a long beard, and wore a traditional skullcap. It was at this time he founded the Islamic Center of Salisbury in a former variety store near Salisbury High School.
https://www.facebook.com/masjidofsalisbury
After traveling to Lebanon, Morgan started employing the name Abu Omar al-Amreeki on Twitter, describing himself as a mujahid (holy warrior). Then came the Twitter pledge on June 29th, 2014 to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. “Mujahid pledging allegiance to al-Baghdadi and Islamic state commanding good and forbidding evil. To brothers in Iraq, be patient. Many of us trying to come.”
On Thursday morning September 4th Donald Morgan plead not guilty today in Federal Court in Greensboro to weapons charges.
