Dennis Morris
U.S. Marine veteran, Retired Charlottesville City Police Officer
Interview with Beth Sutton
October 13,2020
St. John Family Life and Fitness Center, St. John Road, Gordonsville, VA
Dennis Morris was born in Louisa County, attended the all black Z.C. Morton School and graduated in 1965 from A.G. Richardson High. After working during his high school years and after school for his father, a local contractor, Morris also worked as a Janitor at Martha Jefferson Hospital. “I walked by the recruiting office, and saw officers going in and out, saw those uniforms” he said, and seeking a change and opportunity, he enlisted in the Marines. “I volunteered, and July 27, I was sent off to Paris Island, S. C. for training. Morris served in combat in Vietnam from 1966-1967 during the time when the war in Vietnam was “raging”, came back home then was redeployed in 1970-1971. Morris reflected on those years as a very hard time of terrible experiences that have left him and everyone who survived the war with lasting trauma and nightmares. “Fear, hate- it was just out there. You were trained in self-defense, taught to kill, it was just what you were trained to do.” His years in “special ops” in the military as a sniper provided training with weapons, and he works today as a professional gun expert, servicing and working on artillery. He admits that he still enjoys hunting deer for sport, but he said, “I started missing-for some reason I think it has something to do with my conscience-I took the scopes off my guns-and my hunting aim improved.”
Morris worked as a private security guard at Morton Foods in Crozet for a time, “but I wanted more excitement”, he said. He joined the police force in 1973 and served under Police Chief John DeK. “Deke” Bowen before retiring over twenty years later.
Morris recalled his experience in the police force with a mostly positive view. There were many more black officers then than there are now. “We had thirty- two black officers and two sergeants,” he remembered. “They [the captain and the chief] knew that you could relate better [to the black community] if you were black. We treated everyone with respect-if you treat people with respect, you get treated with respect.” Morris told a story about one arrest where he handcuffed the person with hands in front so he could still smoke a cigarette. “I always spoke to them and called them sir,” he said. “There was one guy we often had problems with over at the “GoCo”(locally owned Gulf Oil) convenience store on Cherry Avenue, (a bad neighborhood). One day we had to go down there, and I was with a white officer named Smitty- a super dude. There was this white guy getting arrested who recognized me, and called out to have me handle the situation. I was glad he asked for me.” This was an example of how beneficial it was to be familiar with the people in the neighborhood, and have a relationship on the streets.
Morris recounted several potentially difficult occasions where open communication between Chief Bowen and his officers came in to play to diffuse tension and bring problems under control. “Deke met the early shift every day, to hear what we had to say and ask us what we thought.” Morris told me that he was satisfied to remain an officer rather than be promoted to a higher rank. “Being on patrol, that’s where the action is.” Morris mentioned that he became familiar with the commonwealth attorney Steve Deaton and worked with him to advise on the prosecution of one of his cases. “We had an arrest of a repeat offender with a history of violent behavior. Sending him to prison was only going to make him worse, so we talked about it and the guy was sentenced to parole under really strict conditions. He ultimately reformed and never had any more trouble.”
Morris remembers many of his former colleagues with kind regards. “There were good officers, both white and black, I remember white officers, like Gary Pleasants, Frank Clemons, Glen Pinchback. We all worked together, and things went well. For the most part, he said. One not so good memory was the controversial drug raid “which resulted in the arrest of 12 students and the seizing of the Delta Upsilon, Phi Epsilon Pi and Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity houses”,
mostly white fraternities at the University of Virginia in march 1991. Morris recalls with regret, “the FBI came in, and we were told to stand down. It really ripped us to pieces,” he said. (Due to the nature of the drug raid involving a federal crime the local police had to turn over the handling of the arrest to the DEA. The students later were prosecuted. )
These days Morris stays busy working in retirement, but he stays in touch with his former colleagues. He said, “I go back for the awards ceremonies, and funerals. But I am glad I am not in it (the police force) anymore. It’s not like it used to be.” Commenting on what he thinks is a serious lack of civility in public discourse, and overall lack of leadership both locally and nationally, he regrets the current state of chaos in the police nationwide.
Morris is a member of the St. John Baptist Church, and serves on the committee to restore the St. John Rosenwald School as a community center for Family Life and Fitness. He is married to Barbara Chapman whose father Stanley Chapman, who, along with his eight siblings, was an alumnus of the school. When asked about his family and the local area history, he told me that he recently became more interested in learning about his family ancestry in connection to the Castalia plantation, located on route 15 in Louisa. His wife discovered an old farm sign that turned up in an antique sales booth. He knew about his connection to the farm, and began to “start digging”. He said his family name comes from the original owner, Dr. Morris, of the plantation where his family was enslaved. He also explained that he discovered that his father’s family included the name Purcell, a white landowner in Louisa County. Through reading unpublished documents passed along through family friends and talking to local historians, Morris learned more details about the Louisa and Ferncliff area history including marriage between the Portuguese slave traders and early freed slaves. There were also names like Purcell and Timberlake whose family heritage includes this connection. Shared parentage with mixed race he credits for the unspoken advantages he thinks his father was able to obtain in his early establishment of his sawmill and construction business in the 1940s.
October 13,2020
St. John Family Life and Fitness Center, St. John Road, Gordonsville, VA
Dennis Morris was born in Louisa County, attended the all black Z.C. Morton School and graduated in 1965 from A.G. Richardson High. After working during his high school years and after school for his father, a local contractor, Morris also worked as a Janitor at Martha Jefferson Hospital. “I walked by the recruiting office, and saw officers going in and out, saw those uniforms” he said, and seeking a change and opportunity, he enlisted in the Marines. “I volunteered, and July 27, I was sent off to Paris Island, S. C. for training. Morris served in combat in Vietnam from 1966-1967 during the time when the war in Vietnam was “raging”, came back home then was redeployed in 1970-1971. Morris reflected on those years as a very hard time of terrible experiences that have left him and everyone who survived the war with lasting trauma and nightmares. “Fear, hate- it was just out there. You were trained in self-defense, taught to kill, it was just what you were trained to do.” His years in “special ops” in the military as a sniper provided training with weapons, and he works today as a professional gun expert, servicing and working on artillery. He admits that he still enjoys hunting deer for sport, but he said, “I started missing-for some reason I think it has something to do with my conscience-I took the scopes off my guns-and my hunting aim improved.”
Morris worked as a private security guard at Morton Foods in Crozet for a time, “but I wanted more excitement”, he said. He joined the police force in 1973 and served under Police Chief John DeK. “Deke” Bowen before retiring over twenty years later.
Morris recalled his experience in the police force with a mostly positive view. There were many more black officers then than there are now. “We had thirty- two black officers and two sergeants,” he remembered. “They [the captain and the chief] knew that you could relate better [to the black community] if you were black. We treated everyone with respect-if you treat people with respect, you get treated with respect.” Morris told a story about one arrest where he handcuffed the person with hands in front so he could still smoke a cigarette. “I always spoke to them and called them sir,” he said. “There was one guy we often had problems with over at the “GoCo”(locally owned Gulf Oil) convenience store on Cherry Avenue, (a bad neighborhood). One day we had to go down there, and I was with a white officer named Smitty- a super dude. There was this white guy getting arrested who recognized me, and called out to have me handle the situation. I was glad he asked for me.” This was an example of how beneficial it was to be familiar with the people in the neighborhood, and have a relationship on the streets.
Morris recounted several potentially difficult occasions where open communication between Chief Bowen and his officers came in to play to diffuse tension and bring problems under control. “Deke met the early shift every day, to hear what we had to say and ask us what we thought.” Morris told me that he was satisfied to remain an officer rather than be promoted to a higher rank. “Being on patrol, that’s where the action is.” Morris mentioned that he became familiar with the commonwealth attorney Steve Deaton and worked with him to advise on the prosecution of one of his cases. “We had an arrest of a repeat offender with a history of violent behavior. Sending him to prison was only going to make him worse, so we talked about it and the guy was sentenced to parole under really strict conditions. He ultimately reformed and never had any more trouble.”
Morris remembers many of his former colleagues with kind regards. “There were good officers, both white and black, I remember white officers, like Gary Pleasants, Frank Clemons, Glen Pinchback. We all worked together, and things went well. For the most part, he said. One not so good memory was the controversial drug raid “which resulted in the arrest of 12 students and the seizing of the Delta Upsilon, Phi Epsilon Pi and Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity houses”,
mostly white fraternities at the University of Virginia in march 1991. Morris recalls with regret, “the FBI came in, and we were told to stand down. It really ripped us to pieces,” he said. (Due to the nature of the drug raid involving a federal crime the local police had to turn over the handling of the arrest to the DEA. The students later were prosecuted. )
These days Morris stays busy working in retirement, but he stays in touch with his former colleagues. He said, “I go back for the awards ceremonies, and funerals. But I am glad I am not in it (the police force) anymore. It’s not like it used to be.” Commenting on what he thinks is a serious lack of civility in public discourse, and overall lack of leadership both locally and nationally, he regrets the current state of chaos in the police nationwide.
Morris is a member of the St. John Baptist Church, and serves on the committee to restore the St. John Rosenwald School as a community center for Family Life and Fitness. He is married to Barbara Chapman whose father Stanley Chapman, who, along with his eight siblings, was an alumnus of the school. When asked about his family and the local area history, he told me that he recently became more interested in learning about his family ancestry in connection to the Castalia plantation, located on route 15 in Louisa. His wife discovered an old farm sign that turned up in an antique sales booth. He knew about his connection to the farm, and began to “start digging”. He said his family name comes from the original owner, Dr. Morris, of the plantation where his family was enslaved. He also explained that he discovered that his father’s family included the name Purcell, a white landowner in Louisa County. Through reading unpublished documents passed along through family friends and talking to local historians, Morris learned more details about the Louisa and Ferncliff area history including marriage between the Portuguese slave traders and early freed slaves. There were also names like Purcell and Timberlake whose family heritage includes this connection. Shared parentage with mixed race he credits for the unspoken advantages he thinks his father was able to obtain in his early establishment of his sawmill and construction business in the 1940s.