A sheriff’s deputy was killed in the line of duty after a wrong-way crash late Saturday on Interstate 95, according to the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office.
Kevin Morris, 55, was a homicide agent, hired as a deputy in February 2021 and served with the agency for five years. He previously was with the Palm Bay Police Department.
Morris and an unidentified driver died after crashing head-on into each other as Morris was on duty heading toward a deputy-involved shooting incident in Mims, said Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey.
“This morning our agency, our community, the family of Kevin are absolutely devastated,” Ivey said at a Sunday morning press conference. “Kevin was probably one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet in your life.”
According to a Florida Highway Patrol crash report, the unidentified driver, driving a 2021 Nissan Sentra, was traveling southbound around 11:03 p.m. in the northbound lanes of I-95 south of State Road 46.
A witness reported that the Sentra made a U-turn on the interstate and began traveling the wrong way at approximately mile marker 223.
Lt. Channing Taylor, Brevard County FHP station district commander, stressed the importance of wrong-way calls at the press conference.
“Those calls are taken very seriously,” Taylor said. “We have our wrong-way detectors on the ramps, which FDOT and their vendors monitor. This is not a case where somebody went up the ramp the wrong way and got confused.”
Morris, driving a Brevard County Sheriff’s Office patrol car, was traveling northbound on I-95 in the area of mile marker 221 in the inside lane when the Sentra came into his direct path. As a result, the Sentra collided with the front of the deputy’s patrol car, causing both vehicles to become engulfed in flames.
Both the unidentified driver and Morris were pronounced deceased on scene.
The report said the medical examiner’s office will contact FHP once they have identified the Sentra driver and the crash remains under investigation.