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

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — 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 destruction of evidence in the January 2021 killing, the U.S. attorney’s office said in a news release. Another non-officer man, Joshua M. Rogers, was indicted on charges of conspiracy 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 dump 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 it to a scrap dealer, prosecutors said.

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

Rogers has also been charged in state court with tampering with evidence, abuse of a corpse and accessory after the fact to the murder.

Ferguson and Rogers have been released on bail on state charges, but it was not immediately clear late Wednesday whether they had been arrested on federal charges.

Ferguson’s attorney, William Massey, said the federal indictment was expected, but he provided no further comment. Rogers’ attorney in the state case did not immediately return a call seeking comment.