The Van Buren man accused of smashing Arkansas' brand-new Ten Commandments monument and posting the video on the Internet was indefinitely committed to the State Hospital on Thursday after a diagnosis by state doctors that he is unfit to stand trial at least for now.
The preliminary finding for Michael Tate Reed II was not a surprise to prosecutors or defense attorneys.
Reed, 32, spent time in an Oklahoma mental hospital when he similarly demolished a Ten Commandments memorial at the Oklahoma Capitol in October 2014.
Prosecutors there required Reed to undergo mental-health treatment instead of facing criminal charges.
Photos by Emma Pettit
Click here for larger versions
Reed's family members say he's mentally ill and that he had let his medication lapse when he drove his car into the newly erected Arkansas monument in June, less than a day after the 6-foot, 3-ton monolith had been ceremonially unveiled.
A Capitol Police officer saw the car ram the monument and immediately arrested Reed, who has been charged with criminal mischief, a Class C felony that carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
At Thursday's hearing, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza ordered Reed to be sent to the State Hospital for doctors to perform a more extensive examination of his condition.
The order pauses the criminal proceedings until the question of his mental health is resolved, a decision that is ultimately up to the judge.
Reed is scheduled to return to court next September, but he could be back much sooner depending on when doctors reach an agreement on the state of his mental health.
The initial mental exam was ordered in August at the request of Reed's public defender at his first Circuit Court appearance. Reed went to court Thursday with newly hired attorneys, Robert Edwin Hodge III and Laura Lensing Calhoun of the Hodge Calhoun Giattina firm of Little Rock.
A replacement monument, paid for with private funds, has been completed but has yet to be installed. The General Assembly passed special legislation in 2015 to allow the monument to be placed on the Capitol grounds. Civil liberties groups complain that commemorating the biblical laws of Judaism and Christianity in that manner is unconstitutional and promise a lawsuit if the marker is replaced.
Reed broadcast the purported ramming of the monument on Facebook Live. The 17-second video opens in the dark interior of his car, illuminated only by the orange dashboard display, with the song "Throne Room" by Christian singer Kim Walker-Smith playing.
For several seconds, the camera moves from the dash to the front window as the car's headlights turn on, directly across from the monument. The lights don't quite reach it. As the camera wobbles, a voice hoarsely speaks, "Oh, my goodness."
Then, as the car starts moving forward, the voice calls out "Freedom" over the music. Just as the marker starts coming into view, the camera dives sharply to the right and there's a brief sound that might be the crash just as the recording ends.
Hours before the marker was destroyed, a message, "Our Constitutional rights have been violated and since no one will do anything about it I will," was posted on Reed's Facebook page.
Reed's Facebook profile photograph at the time of the crash was a picture of Reed holding a small Ten Commandments plaque that he said was in his grandfather's home.
A Section on 11/17/2017