Former Memphis Police officer gets 38 year sentence for kidnapping, killing man while on duty

Former Memphis Police officer Patric Ferguson was sentenced to 38 years in prison on Dec. 1, 2025. Ferguson kidnapped and fatally shot a man while on duty in 2021, according to plea documents submitted to the court. (Photo: Karen Pulfer Focht for Tennessee Lookout)

A former Memphis Police Department officer was sentenced to 38 years in prison Monday for kidnapping and killing a man while on duty.

Patric J. Ferguson, 34, pleaded guilty in August to civil rights, firearms, kidnapping and obstruction charges connected with the fatal shooting of 30-year-old Robert Howard.

“This defendant committed a premeditated murder while using his position as a police officer, not to protect the Memphis community, but to perpetuate this horrendous crime and shield himself from suspicion and liability,” Assistant Attorney General Harriet K. Dhillon of the U.S Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division stated in a Monday news release.

“While no prison sentence can undo the defendant’s heartless crimes, today’s sentence holds the defendant accountable and sends a clear message that no one is above the law,” Dhillon stated.

Ferguson used a police database to search for Howard, who at the time was in a relationship with a woman who previously dated Ferguson, according to Ferguson’s plea documents. He then used his department-issued patrol car to kidnap Howard from the woman’s home on January 5, 2021, according to Ferguson’s plea documents.

Ferguson then drove to a nearby parking lot and fatally shot Howard. Later, Ferguson conspired with Joshua M. Rogers, a childhood friend, to dispose of Howard’s body in the Wolf River in Memphis, court records state. Rogers and Ferguson then sold the vehicle they used to transport the body to a scrap metal company in Mississippi.

The FBI’s Nashville Field Office and the Memphis Police Department investigated the case. 

The department arrested Ferguson in January 2021 and immediately released him from duty, according to a statement posted on Jan. 10, 2021 on the department’s social media. Ferguson had been employed by MPD since October 2018. 

Rogers pleaded guilty in May to obstruction charges and is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 17.

Ferguson pleaded guilty to deprivation of rights under the color of law; kidnapping; use and discharge of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence causing death, conspiracy to tamper with a witness, victim or informant; and obstruction of justice, according to judgment documents.