Flurry of shootings probed for links
Pine Bluff police are looking for answers after a violent Thursday afternoon that left three men dead of gunshot wounds in separate locations over a three-hour span. Investigators are trying to determine if any of the shootings are related and also if a shooting later that night in south Pulaski County has any connection to Pine Bluff.
About 2 p.m. Thursday, police answered a reported-shooting call at 3101 Lilac St. and found 69-year-old Horace Harrington outside the residence. Harrington was pronounced dead by Jefferson County Coroner Chad Kelley.
Less than three hours later, at 4:40 p.m., police responded to another reported shooting in the area of West 17th Avenue and South Elm Street and found a 17-year-old male, identified by Kelley as Emonya Moten of Pine Bluff, lying in front of a residence. Kelley pronounced Moten dead at the scene of gunshot wounds.
Police said a second man, identified as Cedric LaPoole, 23, of Pine Bluff, was taken to Jefferson Regional Medical Center for treatment of injuries that were not considered life-threatening.
Just 20 minutes later, about 5 p.m., police responded to 25 Needles Drive in the Dollarway area after another shooting was reported. There they found 20-year-old Kavon Mitchell of Pine Bluff in front of the residence suffering from apparent gunshot wounds, police said.
Mitchell was taken to Jefferson County Medical Center, where he later died.
About 8 p.m. Thursday, state police responded to a shooting on the northbound side of Interstate 530 at Woodson Lateral Road that left one person dead and three hospitalized.
According to an Arkansas State Police news release Friday evening, Devonta Miller, 19, a front-seat passenger in a northbound Dodge Charger, died after being struck by gunfire that came from inside a car that had pulled up alongside. Miller was pronounced dead at the scene, the release said.
Deddrick Childs, 19, the driver of the Charger, and two other
passengers, Derek Parks, 18, and Austin Hunter, 19, were taken to a Little Rock hospital suffering from gunshot wounds. Childs and Hunter were hospitalized in stable condition Friday night, and Parks was last reported to be in critical condition, according to the release.
Assistant Police Chief Ricky Whitmore said investigators are looking into possible connections between any of the three shootings in Pine Bluff as well as the freeway shooting.
“Some of the information we’ve received during our investigations indicates that there may be a connection between the incident on the freeway and one or more of the shootings in Pine Bluff,” Whitmore said. “That’s not confirmed, but it’s being looked at.”
Sheriff Lafayette Woods Jr., whose detectives assisted city police, said Friday afternoon that evidence had turned up that suggested a link between the shootings in south Pulaski County and one or more of the shootings in Pine Bluff.
He said a definite link had yet to be confirmed, but the timing, he said, raised that possibility.
“It’s certainly not something you can rule out just because of the fact that it happened so close together,” Woods said. “It’s obviously something to think about and to me a red flag as one might automatically assume there’s a connection, but we haven’t been able to determine that, at least at this point.”
Bill Sadler, spokesman for the State Police, did not directly answer the question of a possible connection, but also did not deny the possibility.
“You’re talking about Pine Bluff shootings?” Sadler said. “You need to direct that question to the Pine Bluff police because they would have to be the ones to make that connection. That’s not our case.”
Whitmore acknowledged that three homicides in one day had strained resources in the chronically understaffed police department. He said detectives at the second shooting scene had just begun their investigation when the call came in about the third shooting.
“The day-shift detectives were held over, all available off-duty detectives were called in, and Jefferson County sheriff’s detectives assisted because of it,” he said. “Later, the evening-shift patrol officers were held over while graveyard-shift officers worked their shift just in case something else happened.”
Whitmore said officers are on guard against further violence.
“It’s always a possibility,” he said. “We have not gotten any talk of retaliatory measures, but we are going to try to be ready if it occurs.”
The violence Thursday came on the heels of an equally violent August.
On Aug. 13 about 1 a.m., police found Christopher Gates, 39, and Charles Washington Jr., 18, shot at a home at 101 W. 17th Ave. Gates was pronounced dead at the scene and Washington died during surgery at Jefferson Regional Medical Center. Police said no suspects have been identified in that homicide.
The following day just before midnight, Stephen Carter, 51, was found dead inside a home at 4316 W. Burnett St. by police responding to a reported shooting. Iman Jackson, 31, of Pine Bluff was arrested Aug. 17 in Carter’s death and is being held in the Jefferson County jail on a capital murder charge.
On Aug. 23 about 3 a.m., seven people were shot and wounded following a disturbance in the parking lot of a gas station at 2901 W. 28th Ave. Police have identified no suspects in the incident.
Council Member Win Trafford, chairman of the Public Safety Committee, said the latest incidents are likely indicators of a troubling trend.
“We’ve got to address this immediately,” Trafford said. “It’s already bad, but it’s just going to get worse. Our Police Department has to adopt a zero-tolerance policy toward violations, even minor ones. I know it will take resources the city can’t easily afford, but what choice do we have? Every time we think it can’t get worse, it gets worse. We’re not going to wish this problem away.”
The two other members of Trafford’s committee, Aldermen Ivan Whitfield and Joni Alexander, agreed the situation must be addressed, although the two had differing ideas about how. Whitfield, a former Pine Bluff police chief, said the solution is to instill discipline through mandatory ROTC-type high school courses, to get tough on crime at all levels and to address violent crime through tough sentencing.
“That don’t help the young boys that’s already 16, 17 and 18 years old. It’s going to help the younger generation,” Whitfield said. “We need to abruptly get those young boys, get them charged, and let them know that if you commit a crime like this in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, you’re looking at 30 years, looking at 50 years. You’re going to spend your life in prison; we’re not going to play with you once you hit the court system.”
Alexander said crime problems have persisted for years in Pine Bluff and said it might be time to use a different approach. She recommended strategies that employ readily available data to provide insight into criminal activity.
“We could use data to get a better understanding of the culture of crime here to the point where we could almost predict it,” she said. “The type of crime we have is always the same type of crime, the same type of perpetrator, the same type of victim. We don’t need everybody’s opinion; we need to look at these numbers and come up with a solution.”
Trafford said the Public Safety Committee will probably hold a special meeting Tuesday before the City Council meets to discuss the recent violence.