Man who held 13 people hostage at Jacksonville bank had psychotic break, mom says

A woman says her son who held 13 people hostage during an attempted robbery at a Jacksonville bank on Thursday was experiencing a psychotic break.

Betty Harris said her son Nicholas Daquan Humphrey called her the night before he walked into Community First Credit Union on Edgewood Avenue with a gun and his dog.

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"He called and he wanted to speak with a pastor," Harris said.

She said she thinks her 23-year-old son had a psychotic break before he held up the Jacksonville credit union.

Police said he fired a gun inside the bank and made everyone go into a back room.

He surrendered after SWAT team members forced their way into the bank.

"He told me I would be receiving his big toe in the mail," Harris said. "I said, 'Nicholas, what is going on? What is this about?' Don’t worry about it mom I love you. Tell my brothers and sisters I love them.”

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He hung up after Harris asked if he was drinking or doing drugs.

Harris said her son lived with her in Tampa up until June, when he moved to Jacksonville.

"I said, 'Nicholas, I don't know what you're doing but you cannot do this. I'm not gonna have drugs in my house,'" Harris said. "I'm not gonna have you around me or these kids acting crazy."

She said in recent months he'd been angry and not looking like himself.

"He questioned, why do I always have to be a good guy? Why do I always have to work and break my back for these few pennies and these people are robbing banks and killing people and live in like they want to live?" Harris said.

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She said she was shocked when she found out about the hostage situation from her son's girlfriend, who lives in Fort Pierce.

"It was really shocking to me as a parent and shocking to me as a person because I thought of all those people that were held hostage," she said. "And didn't know what was going to happen to their lives."

Humphrey is facing 13 counts of kidnapping, one count of armed robbery and one count of theft of a motor vehicle.

He was arrested in Jacksonville in September for driving with a suspended license. He was also arrested in Hillsborough County in February on a domestic violence charge.

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“There are a lot of details we don’t know. Why he picked that location? We’ve asked ourselves that and we will again dig into that,” Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams said.

Williams said a motive is still unclear but he’s thankful no one was hurt. An accomplishment he credits to his officers’ training.

“Having a police officer, a victim, and a suspect all in the same room together is never where you want to be but sometimes it’s where you have to be and that was the case today. So I can’t tell you, the level of professionalism is off the chart,” said Williams.

Williams said they’ll be looking at mental illness as a possible motive. He also said Humphrey was not cooperative with law enforcement this morning and was “over the top” in terms of communication with his officers.

Cox Media Group