Hospital Killing Suspect Showed Signs of Trouble : Tragedy: Records say father went to court to begin process of having son committed for mental problems. Petition was later withdrawn.

The man accused of shooting four people in a Mission Bay hospital emergency room has had psychiatric problems dating back at least 25 years, when his father went to court to have him examined for mental illness because he was “very hyperactive” and “on the verge of violence.”

Bradford Warren Powers Jr., 46, was held Monday in the San Diego County Jail and is scheduled to be arraigned this afternoon in Municipal Court on two counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder.

Powers turned himself in to authorities about an hour after he allegedly opened fire Saturday in the emergency room of the Mission Bay Memorial Hospital, killing a nurse and student trainee, and wounding the on-duty physician and the father of a patient, police said.

Homicide Sgt. Frank Martinez said police interviewed Powers and his family and learned that he was angry over the death Saturday morning of his father, well-known architectural illustrator Brad Powers Sr.

The shootings occurred about eight hours after the elder Powers died in the emergency room. His relatives then returned to their La Jolla home, where they began discussing the emergency room death.

“They said he was angry (at the hospital) just like they were,” the sergeant said. “They were all angry. But there was no conversation about him going to the hospital and shooting these people.

“Instead, he just got up and left, and the next thing you know he’s in his car and drove to the hospital. He just disappeared and they didn’t even know he left.”

Martinez described Powers as someone who “cared about his father very, very much.” And witnesses said that the hospital assailant, when he walked into the emergency room, yelled, “You killed my father!”

Court records show that Powers has been suspected of suffering mental problems in the past.

In 1965, his father filed a petition in San Diego Superior Court to begin the process of having his son tested for mental illness with the possibility of having him committed to county authorities.

Bradford Powers Jr. at that time was 21, single and unemployed, and he was examined by Dr. Carl E. Graner.

“Graner states that he is in an acute psychotic episode and appears to be on the verge of violence,” the father’s petition said. “He refused medication and hospitalization.”

The elder Powers then described his son’s behavior at home.

“I noticed that, when he arrived home from a training cruise a week ago, he was very hyperactive and talkative and talked on and on about abuses he underwent on the cruise.

“He said that a doctor accused him of malingering when he was in fact in great pain. He talked hour upon hour about this and would talk on no other subject. We took him to a medical doctor, who found nothing physically wrong with him and recommended a psychiatrist.”

The father said that his son was treated briefly in a local hospital, and then returned home.

“But (he) refused to take the prescribed medicine,” the father’s petition added. “He was admitted to the psychiatric ward as an emergency.”

Two court-appointed doctors were lined up to conduct examinations, but the father withdrew his petition just five days after he filed the request.

It was unclear if the younger Powers subsequently sought or received psychiatric treatment. Family members declined to talk to The Times on Monday.