Doctors find suspect in threats fit for trial

A 50-year-old Maumelle man accused of threatening a trio of golfers, one of them the city’s police chief, with a shotgun has been found fit to stand trial by state doctors after a commitment to the State Hospital and two mental examinations.

Bradley Len French is charged with six felony counts — one count of aggravated assault and terroristic threatening for each of the men. He’s accused of accosting Maumelle Police Chief Samuel R. Williams, 64; Blake Westmoreland, 62, of Sherwood; and Lloyd Faust, 77, of Sherwood in November on the grounds of the Country Club of Arkansas. He faces a maximum of 51 years in prison if convicted.

The State Hospital findings were presented to Pulaski County Circuit Judge

Herb Wright at a Monday hearing. French, who is free on $15,000 bond, is due back in court next month for his attorney, Justin Cloar, to report on whether the defense will challenge the psychological findings.

The final decision on whether French is fit to stand trial is up to the judge.

Court records show that French has made similar threats before. In October 2016, French, who is white, was sentenced to a year on probation in exchange for pleading guilty to two counts of misdemeanor terroristic threatening, reduced from felony charges, for threatening to shoot two black women outside a North Little Rock restaurant in June 2013 while using a racial slur.

In the country club incident, Maumelle police were called to the scene — the 17th fairway behind French’s home at 172 Marseilles Drive — when the chief called 911 to report that a shotgun-wielding man claiming to work for the FBI had just accosted him and some others, according to an arrest report.

Officers searching the area found French drinking a beer in the driveway of a neighbor’s home and arrested him, according to reports. The neighbor, Terry Harper, 67, told police that French had been visiting earlier and they had gotten to talking about guns, with Harper saying he was looking to buy a 20-gauge shotgun.

According to a report, Harper said French went home and then returned with a black pump-action shotgun. Harper said he didn’t buy the weapon because it was a 12-gauge and not what he wanted. Harper said French left with the gun. Harper’s son, Kipp Harper, 43, told police that French had put the shotgun in a gun safe in French’s garage, according to the report.

Investigators got a search warrant and seized a shotgun from the safe, and it was identified as the one the golfers had seen French carrying, reports said. Westmoreland and Faust identified French as the man who had pointed a shotgun at them, saying he was going to “blow their mother **** ing heads off,” the report said.

Faust told police that he, Westmoreland and the chief were playing golf when a ball landed behind French’s home. While they were looking for the ball, the gunman walked up, told them they were on his property and threatened them with the gun, the report said. Westmoreland and Faust said they were still on the country club grounds, and police noted that the French’s backyard was fully fenced and padlocked.

In a recorded interview, French denied wrongdoing, saying he had taken the weapon to show his neighbor but never pointed it at anyone or threatened anyone with it.

When he was being arrested, French “repeatedly told officers that he works for and with the FBI and DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] as well as for Caliber [Public] Safety Systems,” the report stated.

The Iowa-based Caliber, which has an office in North Little Rock, provides public safety and jail management software for law enforcement agencies. On his application for a public defender, French reported that he was laid off from the company in January.

French was committed to the State Hospital in July after state doctors found him to be suffering from schizophrenia-like symptoms, along with anxiety and alcohol abuse, reports say.

Psychologist Michael Wood, describing his interview with French, wrote that an “obviously impaired” French appeared delusional when discussing his background, the report said.

“Mr. French made numerous grandiose and paranoid statements, and lacked insight into the bizarreness of his claims and presentation,” Woods’ report said.

The psychologist described French “as quite arrogant and condescending about the vast knowledge and experiences he has had in law enforcement,” the report said.

In the subsequent examination by Dr. Martin Watts, French was diagnosed with delusional disorder for “multiple fixed, false beliefs” that he’s displayed since 2016.

“He had grandiose-type delusions, such as believing he had special powers, including extrasensory perception, and that his skills were sought after by the DEA and the FBI. Some delusions had a persecutory theme, such as believing that people in black Crown Victoria cars were monitoring him and others,” Watts wrote in his report.

“Although he verbalized delusional beliefs, his thought processes were otherwise rational and organized. His delusions were not of a nature that would preclude him from understanding the proceedings against him or effusively assisting his attorney,” the report said.

But French did not have the other symptoms of schizophrenia, such as hallucinations or disorganized speech, the psychiatrist wrote in his report, delivered to the court last week.

Watts also diagnosed French with severe alcohol-use disorder

French’s sanity had been called into question previously, after his June 2013 arrest on threatening charges. State psychological examiners in March 2016 determined that he did not have a mental disease, diagnosing him with moderate alcohol-use disorder and panic disorder, court records show.

In that case, Linda Spencer and Yolanda Harden were in the parking lot of the Texas Roadhouse at 3601 Warden Road in North Little Rock on June 30, 2013, with friends, Ronnie Gill, Howard Spencer and Queen Miles, when a man yelled from a passing car, “I have a gun in the car! Get out of town, [racial epithet] before I blow your heads off with a shotgun,” according to a police report.

Gill got the car’s license plate number, and the group flagged down a North Little Rock police officer. Officers stopped the car at the Foothills Apartments, 2401 Lakeview, where French lived.

Jana French Carruth, French’s sister, got out of the car and approached officers in an “aggressive manner, yelling and cursing, “Stop, you son of a b **** . He’s innocent. Leave him alone,” the report said.

An elderly man in the back seat, French’s father, Marvin French, also cursed at officers, before saying, “Leave us alone!”

The fourth person in the car, Loretta French, the defendant’s mother, was in the front seat and told officers she didn’t hear anyone in the vehicle threaten anybody else.

“Those people in the parking lot were angry with us and started reaching into their purses,” she said.