Deputy Gerald L. Morris, 28, was killed on January 2, 1981, after confronting armed robbers at the Bargain Barrel Clothing Store on East 82nd Street in Indianapolis. Off duty but in uniform and working a security detail, Morris arrived in a marked security vehicle and entered the store where he encountered the suspects. An initial exchange of gunfire left one deputy, Terry Baker, fatally wounded; Morris wounded one suspect before retreating to his car to call for backup. The second suspect then used Deputy Baker’s service revolver in a subsequent shootout that left both Deputy Morris and that suspect fatally wounded; both were later pronounced dead at St. Vincent Hospital.

Investigators determined the two suspects had been federal prison cellmates. The wounded suspect, identified as 39 years old, fled but was arrested the next day in Tupelo, Mississippi and later convicted for the murders of Deputies Morris and Baker; he received concurrent lengthy prison terms and died in custody in 1999. Deputy Morris had two years with the Marion County Sheriff’s Department and had previously served as a deputy marshal with the Cumberland Police Department. Does anyone have memories of Deputy Morris or details about the scene that could add to the record?