Police gunfire injures suspect

Man said to take ‘shooting stance’

Little Rock police are investigating after two officers shot and critically injured a man in a confrontation outside a church early Thursday.

The officers were called about 12:15 a.m. to Squire Court Apartments at 5201 Geyer Springs Road, where a rape and a stabbing had been reported, Police Chief Kenton Buckner said. Officers arrested one person after investigators spoke to witnesses and a victim, according to Buckner.

The two officers, Buckner said, were searching the area for a second suspect when they found a man hiding in darkness across the street at Geyer Springs Church of Christ.

Buckner said the officers told the man to come out with his hands up. He said the man emerged from the darkness in a “shooting stance,” and the two officers opened fire.

Police said the man was shot multiple times but is expected to survive. He was listed in critical but stable

condition at an area hospital Thursday afternoon.

Police spokesman Lt. Steve McClanahan said officers did not find a gun after shooting the man. He said a “shooting stance,” as Buckner described it, makes it appear “like you’re going to shoot someone.”

“To me it’d be like where you’re squared up, and you have your hands pointing forward,” McClanahan said.

The two officers were placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation, in accordance with department policy. The Police Department said the officers were on regular patrol and were not working a mandatory overtime shift. Such shifts began last month to help curtail violent crime in the city.

Police did not immediately identify the officers or the man who was shot. A report on the altercation at the apartment complex was also withheld.

McClanahan said Thursday afternoon that investigators had determined that there had been a fight at the apartment complex, but no rape. The man arrested by police was released without being charged pending further investigation.

McClanahan said police will release additional details in the case today.

The shooting Thursday was the fifth involving a Little Rock police officer this year.

In February, officer Angela Everett shot and killed Gregory Childress, 44, when Childress tried to rob her at gunpoint, according to police. Everett had been working off-duty as a security guard and was wearing her police uniform at the time.

In March, officers Brian Osmundson and Samuel Hill fatally shot Michael Hornibrook, 54, in the city’s River Market District downtown, according to reports. Police said the officers shot Hornibrook when he raised a gun toward them. Prosecutors cleared the officers of any legal wrongdoing.

In April, officer Jonathan Gonzalez fatally shot Austin Dakota Snyder, 22, as Snyder tried to flee police in a hotel parking lot, the department reported. Snyder reportedly

rammed a vehicle and ignored commands to show his hands before Gonzalez opened fire.

In July, officer Ralph Breshears shot Rudy Avila, 22, outside a Chick-fil-A in west Little Rock after Avila stole a vehicle, drove toward the officer and refused to stop, according to police.

Little Rock police regulations state that officers can use deadly force only to “protect themselves or others from what they reasonably believe to be an immediate threat of death or serious physical injury.”

An investigation into the latest shooting is ongoing.