Mom of suspect in officers' slayings speaks out

Two weeks ago, life was pretty good for Selecia Watson.

Watson, 41, had just been certified to officiate Paralympics track meets and had returned from officiating at the 2010 U.S. Paralympics National Track & Field Championships two weeks ago in Miramar.

"It was an awesome experience," she said early Friday morning. "It was very rewarding to see those athletes perform."

But Watson's glow ended when bullets rang out on 50th Street early Tuesday morning. Tampa Police officers Jeffrey Kocab and David Curtis were killed. Police say Watson's son Dontae Morris did it, then ran and hid for five days.

Watson was calling from outside the Orient Road Jail, where she was waiting for police to deliver her son to a cell.

High Expectations

For Watson, whose family is as accustomed to success as it is to failure, the events surrounding her son Dontae are "mindboggling" and "heartbreaking."

Aside from her own work in track and field, her husband, Gary Watson Jr., is a special education teacher and assistant track coach at Plant City High, as well as the founder and head coach of the Tampa Matrix Track Club. Last year, one of his runners "set a new championship record in winning the 800 meters at the AAU National Club Championships at Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex at Lake Buena Vista" according to his Facebook page.

That Dontae would be accused of killing anyone, she said, is shocking.

"I never knew Dontae to be violent or have anger or rage," she said. "I never saw it in him.

Watson remembers her son not as a killer, accused of three murders, a suspect in another and a person of interest in a fifth. She remembers him as "an awesome football player with the Raiders little league football."

She remembers him as a member of the Boys and Girls Club.

And she remembers him as the 16-year-old, who left home.

"Young boys want to sow their wild oats," she said.

Dontae went to live with his paternal grandfather, Eugene Morris, over at 4307 Clifton - a few blocks from where police say he gunned down Derek Anderson on May 18 at the Johnson and Kenneth Court Apartments on 43rd Street.

It wasn't long before trouble found Morris.

Tampa police first arrested him in October 2003 on a charge of battery by a detained person. He was 18 at the time and already on probation for possession and delivery of cocaine, records show.

The arrests continued in Hillsborough County with charges that included carjacking, driving without a valid license, tampering with a witness and attempted first-degree murder. Florida Department of Law Enforcement records show he has been arrested 18 times.

Watson said she knew her son was getting into trouble, but didn't know the extent of it.

"He knew we had higher expectations," she said. "Anything that did not meet our expectations, he did not bring us into it."

As for the murder charges against her son, Watson said that "I do not know, but in my heart, I do not want to believe he did it."

Opposite Futures

The Watson abode at 3411 Deleuil Ave. is a house divided.

Her sons Dontae Morris and Dwayne Callaway - who was also arrested Friday morning, charged with violating probation on domestic violence and drug charges and may face additional charges in connection with his brother's now-temporary disappearance - are spending the night in jail. But there are two other children who will wake up Saturday morning with much brighter futures.

Her stepson Chris Watson, 19, has a scholarship to Queens University in Charlotte, NC. Her daughter, Audra Callaway, also 19, is studying pre-law at Hillsborough Community College and wants to be a lawyer.

Her immediate future might be in question, though, as police investigate whether she communicated with her brother, Morris, while he was a fugitive.

Gary Watson Jr., wonders if his wife will continue to have the chance to succeed, given that her son is charged with killing two police officers and another man, is a suspect in a fourth murder and thought to be connected to a fifth.

"She's a good woman," said Gary Watson Jr. of his wife as he stood in the doorway of the family's home Friday morning. "She is a good person in the community. We didn't have anything to do with this.

"We feel sorry for everything that has occurred," said Gary Watson Jr., whose family expressed their sympathies for the families of Curtis and Kocab.