Other days

100 YEARS AGO Dec. 3, 1916

TUCKER — A jury empaneled by Coroner H. E. Williams today exonerated Constable James Leith for killing Andrew Watson, 18 years old, at the Watson home here, last night, when the officer and Marshal W. H. Powers of Rison sought to arrest John J. Watson on a charge of desertion from the United States army. Testimony showed that the Watsons had barred the doors and refused to admit the officers. Leith broke in the door and fired when J. J. Watson hurled a flat iron at him.

50 YEARS AGO

Dec. 3, 1966

The city received notice Friday of a $690,000 federal grant to aid in construction of an interceptor sewer line along the Arkansas River that will keep untreated sewage from being dumped into the River. The grant is for phase two of the threephase project, the first of which is under construction. The first phase will extend from the sewer treatment plant east of Adams Field to the end of Commerce Street.

25 YEARS AGO

Dec. 3, 1991

The state Department of Pollution Control and Ecology has withdrawn interim approval for Vertac Site Contractors to burn 2,4-D waste in the company’s mobile incinerator in Jacksonville. A PC&E news release Monday stated that preliminary data from an October trial burn indicated that 2,3,7,8-TCDD dioxin was present in one batch of waste fed into the incinerator and was detected in smokestack emissions. The news release stated there was no threat to human health or the environment from the incident.

10 YEARS AGO

Dec. 3, 2006

The shooting death of a man in south Little Rock early Saturday pushed the city’s homicide total to 54 for 2006 — more killings than the capital has recorded in a year in more than a decade. Charles Dillard, 57, who police believed to be homeless, was found dead in the parking lot of a strip mall at 4816 Asher Ave. about 4:35 a.m. when emergency responders arrived. He was shot several times in his torso, said Lt. Terry Hastings, spokesman for the Little Rock Police Department. “Apparently, this guy was kind of caught in the crossfire,” Hastings said, noting that detectives weren’t certain that was the case. Witnesses told police that the assailant or assailants shot from the street at a vehicle parked nearby, Hastings said. But witnesses couldn’t describe any of the shooters or the vehicle that was being shot at, except that it was a car, he said.