High-powered weapons and ammunition were among the items seized from the home of a former Los Alamos National Laboratory physicist who has become increasingly paranoid and outspoken against the lab and the government.
Los Alamos police trying to serve a warrant arrested Richard Lee Morse, 75, outside his 1350 Bathtub Row home at 11:45 a.m. Thursday when "he just came out to throw some trash away" after nearly 19 hours, according to Los Alamos Capt. Randy Foster.
A search warrant executed Thursday on Morse's home netted the discovery of three guns — a .30-06 rifle, a .22-caliber rifle and a 9 mm Beretta pistol — and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition, including 661 rounds for the powerful .30-06 rifle alone. As a condition of his release from jail for a pending criminal case, Morse was not allowed to own a gun.
"It's very concerning that somebody in that mental state would have these types of weapons — certainly the .30-06 is a formidable weapon and the 9 mm is a rapid-fire weapon that can be very dangerous," Sgt. DeWayne Williams told the Los Alamos Monitor on Friday. [Another opportunity for the media to report on the issue of mental health and gun control.]
Police said they also found nine cats in the home Thursday — including two dead ones [the same cats described below?] being stored in Morse's freezer, according to Lt. Jason Wardlow-Herrera.
"We were told [by who?] he was planning to use those weapons if we tried to take him, so we proceeded with great caution in serving this warrant," Foster said. "We didn't have reason to believe he was going to ever go out of the home to use these weapons, but when dealing with people we have reason to believe may have some mental instability, we have to proceed with that caution, and this ended as peacefully as could be expected given the circumstances."
Foster said police had gone to Morse's home at 5 p.m. Wednesday to serve him with an arrest warrant signed by Judge Stephen Pfeffer, charging Morse with failing to comply with the conditions of his electronic monitoring, according to police.
Morse, awaiting trial before Pfeffer on a charge of battery on a peace officer in Los Alamos in August, was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation before that case could proceed, but a bed at the Las Vegas, N.M., hospital where that evaluation was to take place was not available until this week. [He hasn't even been officially diagnosed with a mental deficiency yet this article makes it appear that he has already.]
According to an affidavit for a search warrant filed in Los Alamos County Magistrate Court, Morse "said he would not go to Las Vegas," and police had information [from who?] that if they tried to detain him, Morse would shoot them.
Foster said nearly all of the department's 30-plus officers worked the standoff, and they received assistance from the New Mexico State Police and the Albuquerque Police Department.
"Some of our officers were laying in snow embankments for about six hours near his house waiting for him to come out," Foster said.
Despite hours of communication between Morse and police over bullhorns, the telephone and even with a Police Department robot that was able to deliver a cell phone into the home, Morse, upon his arrest, asked, "Why we didn't just come in and get him, almost like he didn't know we were ever there," Foster said.
Morse in the past had high levels of government clearance as a weapons physicist who, among other projects, worked on development of the $128 million W76 submarine nuclear missile warhead in the 1970s.
Morse left the lab in 1976, and in recent years spoke out publicly after saying his internal protests were ignored about a design flaw with the warhead that would leave the United States at risk.
"We're vulnerable as hell," Morse said in a 2004 Associated Press article.
He also alleged that competition between LANL and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California led to weapons designers in Los Alamos cutting corners.
He argued the casing of the warhead was too thin.
More recently, Morse had become increasingly paranoid, telling The New Mexican that federal agents had him under surveillance and that security officers were holding his wife.
In 2008, Morse filed a complaint against Los Alamos County and the Los Alamos Police Department.
"Plaintiff (referring to himself) is concerned about leaving his house, possessions and pets unattended for long intervals as vandalism has occurred and one cat was severely brutalized on two separate incidents around the time of Plaintiff's arrest and beating in November 2006. Much more recently, while dining with friends, two of his cats were poisoned; one of them died. He is concerned that the local police, who are defendants in this case, will not protect his property adequately during his scheduled absence for hearings," Morse wrote in March 2009 in a court filing related to his lawsuit where he alleged police brutality, among other things.
Santa Fe attorney Aaron Boland, representing Morse for his pending criminal case before Pfeffer, did not return a call from The New Mexican on Friday afternoon, but acknowledge to the Monitor that his client was dealing with mental issues.
"Dealing with mental health can pose challenging issues," Boland told the newspaper. "This (standoff) could have been a dangerous situation, but fortunately cooler heads prevailed. I commend the Los Alamos Police Department, Chief (Wayne) Torpy and all those involved for their professionalism, patience and restraint — their actions enabled this event to end without any injuries."
The Monitor interviewed Morse in the Los Alamos County jail Thursday and reported the man seemed confused about the standoff.
"I'm a small cog that has known great men," he said. "Never mind me — you've got to get rid of this NNSA bunch otherwise this place is going to wash down the Rio (Grande)."
He added to the Monitor, "This is happening to me because I blew the whistle on the W-76."
Los Alamos police say they do not intend to charge Morse with any new charges stemming from this week's standoff, but will keep him incarcerated until his psychiatric evaluation.
"Unfortunately because this took so long, that bed that was available for him that started this whole thing has since been filled," Foster said.
