TAMPA, Fla.— A driver upset over a recent breakup intentionally crashed into a concrete median wall along the Courtney Campbell Causeway early Saturday morning.
The driver was Baker Acted after police found him despondent.
In 2015-16 fiscal year, about 194,000 people were placed under the baker act in Florida
This week we told you about new developments in the Mikese Morse hearing. He's accused of Intentionally swerving off the road and killing a father riding bikes with his two young sons on New Tampa Boulevard.
A judge granted Mikese Morse's request to give up his public defender, and instead get a private defense attorney when he appeared in court on Friday.
Morse's parents blame Florida's mental health system for what happened. He spent only a week at a mental health treatment facility, after being baker acted
But is Florida doing enough to help people dealing with mental health issues when they’re Baker Acted?
We took that question to U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson.
“We have not devoted enough resources to mental health,” says Nelson. “The administration here in Florida have been cutting resources to things like mental health in order to spend it elsewhere and that' just a wrong set of priorities.”
Nelson also expressed his concerns about Florida prisons eliminating programs that prepare inmates for their return to the community, which includes reduction in mental health treatment for felons.
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