PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. – On a Saturday morning, a father went into his son’s bedroom to say hello. His son would shoot and kill him. Now the 21-year-old is being held in jail without bond. His family says the system failed him, and them, because he isn’t to blame— he has been struggling with mental illness for years.
Horace Antonio Atkins Jr. was a graduate of Mcarthur High School and was the quarterback of the football team. It was when he started college that his mother said he first experienced a mental health crisis.
“The first time he was Baker acted they said he was bipolar schizophrenic,” said his mother, Lashonda Bailey.
Atkins Jr. is charged with first-degree murder in the shooting of his father Horace Antonio Atkins Sr., 41, which happened Saturday, Aug. 26, in their Pembroke Pines home.
Pembroke Pines police said the Atkins Jr., was located in Miami Gardens soon after the shooting and was taken into custody.
“I have forgiven my grandson. I hold nothing against my grandson. This is what my son would want me to do,” said Mary Adderly, the victim’s mother. “I know my son loved him dearly and there’s no question he fought to the bitter end,” she said.
The family is also not sure how Horace Junior was able to get a gun with his history of mental illness.
Katrina Atkins, Horace Atkins’ wife, said that two other young siblings were in the room and saw the incident play out.
“They saw their daddy lying there. That’s not our Junior. Junior wouldn’t do that in front of his siblings,” she said.
Lashonda Bailey says her son was involuntarily committed three times.
“It’s not fair that someone who abuses drugs and alcohol gets 30 days in a program but someone that doesn’t have control over their mind . . . it’s backwards,” she says.
The family was told that he wouldn’t be able to purchase a gun because of his mental health condition.
“He was mentally ill and needed help and the system failed us,” said his grandmother, Mary Adderly.