"He has mental problems," Father of man accused of shooting at a Coral Springs hospital
FORT LAUDERDALE - A gunman who police said confessed to shooting at Broward Health Coral Springs remains in jail.
On Friday, his father offered some insight as to why it may have happened.
"He has psychological problems," said Ataullah Qureshi. "He has mental problems. I've been telling everybody, but nobody wants to listen to me."
Quereshi told CBS4's Peter D'Oench "He was under treatment of a psychiatrist. It's why the whole thing happened."
Qureshi added that he believes his son shot at the hospital because doctors there told him his mother was dying.
"Doctors told him your mother is dying and he can not take it, so he was very upset. He came home and started crying. He started crying a lot."
"What do you say to your son as a father?" D'Oench asked.
"Never do that. This is very bad, very bad," he replied. "This will not happen anymore. I don't think so. I am going to keep an eye on him now moving forwards. But what happened is very bad. It should not have happened. I'm sad, very sad."
The heartbroken father was unequivocally apologetic for his son's alleged actions and for the response Thursday night that evacuated his neighborhood.
Investigators from the Broward Sheriff's Office Violent Crimes Unit started rolling in around 5 p.m. They arrived at the Qureshi home on 39th Avenue in Sunrise to serve a warrant.
Quereshi said "They found nothing. They pulled the house upside down."
CBS4 was told investigators found what they believed to be a pipe bomb, pulled back, and called the bomb squad. It was an unnerving sight for neighbors.
"It's scary, I mean two houses away from my house, it's unbelievable," said Cesar Reynoso.
Heavily armed officers walked around the home and looked in car windows. When the bomb squad arrived, they prepared a robot to detonate the suspicious item. Almost five hours later, they determined it was not an explosive.
Qureshi was initially arrested on July 4th by Sunrise police and charged with assault with a deadly weapons charge and theft. The same day police went to Qureshi's home to seize all of his weapons before he was released from jail.
On July 6th, he was in jail again, this time for shooting at the hospital in Coral Springs. Police said Qureshi confessed to the hospital shooting and others. On his Facebook account, there are multiple videos of him driving around randomly shooting.
"I didn't know. How can a guy record himself shooting outside of a hospital," Reynoso said.
Qureshi said he's working on bonding his son out of jail, but as of Friday afternoon he remained locked up on a $200,000 bond.
"I am going to try and get him out," said Quereshi.
If released Sami Quereshi will have to wear a pre-trial GPS monitor and will not be allowed to possess any weapons or have access to the internet.
