Jonathan Morris, a former Taco Bell employee, has been accused of fatally shooting Ryan Johnson, the manager who fired him from the restaurant in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Morris, 21, was arrested on Wednesday, October 15, by the Homicide Unit and Fugitive Apprehension Squad in connection with the murder of Johnson, 32, according to WCPO 9 Cincinnati.
Johnson was fatally shot shortly after midnight on August 29, according to Fox 19 and KBTX. He worked as the manager at the Gest Road location in Queensgate, Cincinnati, where Morris was formerly an employee.
The Cincinnati Police Department said Johnson was found with multiple gunshot wounds in the parking lot of the Taco Bell, and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
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Morris was allegedly fired from his job at Taco Bell one day before the shooting incident, though his motive behind pulling a gun on his former boss is not currently clear.
Following his arrest, he appeared before Hamilton County Municipal Judge Tyrone Yates on October 16, per The Cincinnati Enquirer.
“They are devastated by this,” Assistant Prosecutor David Hickenlooper said in court about Johnson’s family, according to Fox 19. “It was senseless. We believe he was only trying to help (Morris).”
The outlet also reported that Johnson’s grandmother told the court, “He killed my grandson. He doesn’t need to be out.”
“He took a life,” the grandmother went on to claim, requesting that Morris didn’t receive bond before his trial.
Meanwhile, Morris’s public defender said he and his family don’t have the funds to pay for a bond. He also said that his client only had one previous contact with authorities before he was arrested.
Despite appearing in court, Morris has not entered a plea as of publication.
Yates ultimately decided to set Morris’ bond at $500,000, according to the outlet. The judge also stated that he would be under 24/7 monitoring if he is to be released.
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“Prosecutors don’t set the bonds. Judges set the bail amount,” Yates told FOX19 NOW. “From our oldest case of law of the U.S. Constitution: ‘It is the province of the judicial department to say what the law (and the Bond) is.”
Shortly after his death, Johnson’s family members told WCPO 9 Cincinnati that he was taking his break when the shooting took place.
“He was just at work,” his aunt Ebony Denton said. “Ryan loved to be there for everybody; he would give you the shirt off his back. He always got that big old cheesy smile. That’s how I remember him.”
