Former Memphis officer hit with federal charges in on-duty kidnapping, killing

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MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A former Memphis police officer has been charged with federal civil rights violations in the fatal shooting of a man while the officer was on duty, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Patric J. Ferguson, 32, was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of kidnapping and destroying evidence in the January 2021 killing, the U.S. attorney's office said in a news release. Another man who is not an officer, Joshua M. Rogers, was indicted on charges of conspiring to cover up the shooting and destroying evidence.

Prosecutors said Ferguson was on duty when he kidnapped a man and shot him in the head in his patrol car. Ferguson then worked with Rogers to dispose of the man's body in the Wolf River in Memphis, prosecutors said. Rogers got rid of the car used to transport the man's body by selling the car at a scrap metal dealership, prosecutors said.

The U.S. attorney's office identified the man who was shot only as R.H. However, Ferguson already has been charged in state court with first-degree murder, kidnapping, abuse of a corpse, official misconduct and other charges in the death of Robert Howard. The circumstances of both cases are the same.

Rogers also has been charged in state court with evidence tampering, abuse of a corpse and being an accessory after the killing.

Ferguson and Rogers have been out of custody on bond on the state charges, but it was not immediately clear late Wednesday if they had been arrested on the federal charges.

Ferguson's lawyer, William Massey, said the federal indictment was expected, but he did not comment further. Rogers' lawyer in the state case did not immediately return a call seeking comment.