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Parents claim racial discrimination in Florida's mental health system

The Herald-Tribune - 4/19/2021

Apr. 19—TAMPA — Just over a decade ago, from the outside looking in, Mikese Morse appeared destined for success.

A high school honor student, he set a University of South Florida school record in the long jump and became the school's first champion in that Big East Conference category. He became an All-American in 2008 and made the Olympic Trials finals.

Morse transferred to the University of Miami, where he again earned All-American honors. In 2016, he became an Olympic Trials long-jump finalist once more, and he graduated from USF with a business degree in marketing.

Morse continued to train even as things began falling apart, slowly, incrementally, until what he and his parents could no longer contain exploded into horrific headlines on June 24, 2018. That's when Morse turned his car into a weapon, aimed for a family on a Sunday morning outing along a bicycle path, and left one man dead and his two children injured.

Morse was immediately charged with first-degree murder. In March, however, the 13th Judicial Circuit State Attorney's Office dropped a news bomb with the announcement that it was intending to seek acquittal by reason of insanity.

But when the non-jury trial begins today, Morse's mother and father hope to turn the spotlight onto a mental health system they consider not only in shambles but also racially biased.

"From the moment this crime was committed — and we tried to prevent it from happening — everyone conspired to feed our child to the criminal justice system," said mother Khadeeja Morse at a press conference last week in downtown Tampa. "And that's where the services exist — after you commit a crime." She likens it to giving birth control pills to a pregnant woman.

The impulsive act that left a community in shock occurred just before noon nearly three summers ago. Witnesses reported a Dodge Avenger making a U-turn on New Tampa Boulevard and speeding toward Pedro Aguerreberry as he rode a bicycle with his two sons. The vehicle swerved 30 feet off the grass, plowed into the family, and killed the 42-year-old father, a popular employee at Citi Group.

Then 30-year-old Mikese Morse fled the scene and abandoned the Avenger. He went on what would be the last of his ongoing and delusional Instagram rants about "the devil" and evil spirits:

"I still will kill every single one of y'all on that motherf---'s head right now ... The universe can end. I do not care. You see these energies changing inside of me and stuff and trying to change perspective."

Authorities caught up with Morse at his parents' house shortly after the carnage.

The next day, the state filed charges of premeditated murder against Morse, who had no prior criminal record. Nearly three years later, however, after assessments from medical experts representing both parties agreed that Morse was incompetent to stand trial, prosecutors admitted they had made a mistake.

"This case shows the consequences of Florida's broken mental health system, and the victim's wife and kids are left holding the pieces," State Attorney Andrew Warren told the media last month. "The law is clear: You cannot convict a person who was so mentally unstable that he did not know right from wrong, so we are doing everything we can to get him committed to Florida State Hospital to make sure he never hurts anyone again."

Morse's outspoken parents say that option won't fly, contending the state system has failed their son once already. Defense attorney Jhenerr Hines will argue for a structured rehab plan at a secure, "community-based" facility where "the court is going to maintain jurisdiction and that his parents are going to have input, rather than him being sent to a hospital somewhere across the state and we don't know what's happening."

Even without a racial component, Florida's mental health infrastructure rests on shaky foundations.

In 2018, the nonprofit Mental Health America ranked Florida 44th out of 50 states in terms of access to medical insurance and mental health treatment; at $36 in annual per capita spending for mental health, the Sunshine State came in last, leading only Puerto Rico among U.S. jurisdictions.

Early this year, in addressing the 51 million American adults who've reported a mental illness, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention added statistics to the Morses' assertions of racial disparities.

"Although reported prevalence estimates of certain mental disorders, substance abuse, or substance use disorders are not generally higher among racial and ethnic minority groups," noted the CDC, "persons in these groups are often less likely to receive treatment services." Furthermore, "White adults were more likely to report stress and worry about the health of family members and loved ones (39.3%) than were Black adults (24.5%)."

And yet, self-reporting his mental instability is exactly what Mikese Morse chose to do on June 12, 2018, two weeks before the catastrophe on New Tampa Boulevard.

"Mikese Morse, in a moment of desperation, finding himself in a state of psychosis in 2018, took himself to the Tampa Police Department and said, 'Hey, I'm going to hurt someone'," said attorney Hines. "He did this as a Black man, and I'm mentioning that because as much as we may try to deny, we all see what's happening daily in our communities."

A TPD officer's contemporaneous interview notes with Morse stated "He continued on not making any logical sense and then advised I should not let him out of the police station or he may hurt someone."

Morse was subsequently committed to a short-term psychiatric evaluation under Florida's Baker Act law. But upon his release from Gracepoint behavioral hospital, Morse was still in a psychotic state, say his parents.

But that brief hospitalization was just the latest in a series of setbacks, which the Morses say began in 2006.

While celebrating his birthday in Ybor City during his freshman year at USF, Mikese and a friend were robbed at gunpoint, with Mikese sustaining a head injury during the assault. He suffered his first psychotic break after that, and four Baker Act detentions would follow. "We always wonder if that could've been the origin," said Khadeeja.

Morse would begin recording social media videos threatening violence. Ultimately, according to his mother, her son would be diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and anosognosia, or a lack of awareness of the illness, according to his mother.

When police came for Mikese Morse that summer 2018 day, his parents made authorities fully aware of his mental history. Yet, the "state attorney (gave) a press conference the following day charging Mikese with premeditated — premeditated — murder. With absolutely no mention of his mental health, and his mental health issues which they were aware of." The charges "led to Mikese getting death threats in jail and almost being killed in jail because of the state attorney's characterization of him as a murderer, instead of someone with mental health (issues) that they were aware of."

Morse has spent more than a year in jail, where he resides today, and a year at Florida State Hospital. A recent evaluation stated he "is compliant with medication prescribed to him in jail, "oriented to person, place, date and situation," "alert and cooperative," his thought processes "logical, organized and goal oriented." He "had no difficulty with comprehension or verbal expression," his speech was "clear and coherent," he was "well spoken" and he "described feeling all right."

"This is who Mikese would've been if he had gotten the mental health services in 2008 when he was begging for it," insisted Hines.

State Attorney Warren responded to last week's press conference with this statement: "We agree the system failed Mikese Morse. The question now is what comes next, after his mental illness led him to drive 30 feet off the road to run down a family. We need to make sure he doesn't hurt anyone else as he's getting treatment — that requires a secure facility."

The Morses want their son closer to home than Florida State Hospital, some 300 miles away in Chattahoochee. Michael Morse says the case is bigger than his son, that the system needs reform.

"When you're a minority, you get dumped out first, you get the lowest amount of care, and you get overlooked for a lot of reasons," he said. "A lot of these institutions treat us like law enforcement does — we're going to be dealt with differently."

Survivors of the Argentine-born Pedro Aguerreberry, said Hines, are out of the country and could not be reached for comment. According to Hines, they will be attending today's court proceedings remotely.

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