1,665 shots reported by LR police as city welcomes new year

The soundtrack to Little Rock’s New Year’s Eve festivities was a cacophony of gunshots and fireworks.

On New Year’s Eve in Little Rock. there were 1,665 reports of shots fired from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m., according to the Little Rock Police Department. That number includes anything from gunshots to fireworks.

Little Rock police said reports of gunshots were not concentrated in any part of the city, but at least one man was grazed by a falling bullet in the early hours of New Year’s Day.

At 12:20 a.m. Little Rock police responded to a call of a 46-year-old man being hit with a stray bullet near 11005 Heinke Road. The bullet fell from the sky and grazed the man in the back, according to the report.

While police don’t know where the bullet came from, shootings in Little Rock that night became ubiquitous with celebratory gunshots taking place through the night and early morning.

Eric Barnes, a spokesman for the Little Rock Police Department, said reports of gunshots on New Year’s Eve have become the norm in the city as many dangerously fire their weapons in celebration.

“It’s something we see every year … people doing celebratory gunfire at New Year’s,” Barnes said. “Which is dangerous but, you know, there’s really no other reason why we’re seeing it.”

Of the 1,665 reported shootings in Little Rock, 239 were tracked by the police’s gunshot detection system, Barnes said.

North Little Rock has seen a steady increase in New Year’s Eve gunshot incidents over the last three years, with a combined 68 on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Last year that number was 57, while the year before was just 30, ac

cording to Gary Gray, North Little Rock Emergency Services deputy director.

Gray said the 68 incidents of shots fired in North Little Rock are defined separately from calls, as multiple people may call in for one incident.

“There may be one incident for shots fired, but we got three 9-1-1 callers on it,” Gray said.

The Pulaski County sheriff’s office did not return a message while a representative from the Jacksonville Police Department said they could not supply the numbers until the following day. In Sherwood, a police representative said the department would need an Arkansas Freedom of Information Information Act request before it could release statistics on New Year’s Eve shootings.