Stolen patrol vehicle unlocked, police say

A Little Rock police vehicle that was stolen from outside the department’s 12th Street Substation last week and crashed on a highway had been left unlocked and with a seized gun in the passenger seat by the officer assigned to it, a police incident report states.

That officer, Walter Riddick, was transporting a suspect to the substation for questioning shortly before 4:50 a.m. Thursday and parked his patrol vehicle in one of the parking spots outside the substation, the report states. Riddick later said he pressed the lock button on his key fob but did not check that the doors were secure.

An administrative investigation into the theft was still ongoing Tuesday, police spokesman Mark Edwards said. A technical glitch caused a news release about the theft posted last week to disappear from the city’s website early this week, Edwards said.

Riddick and another officer had each made an arrest in a prior incident that morning, and there was a .40-caliber Glock 22 pistol in the passenger area of Riddick’s patrol vehicle.

The other officer reported seeing a man in the rear parking area acting erratically and rambling incoherently while Riddick was inside with one of the suspects, the report states. That officer told the man to leave the area and left to take the other suspect to jail.

Riddick exited the substation around 5 a.m. and found his patrol car missing from the spot where he parked it. While Riddick tried to determine whether another officer had moved his vehicle without telling him, police dispatch got a report shortly after 5 a.m. of a Little Rock police vehicle wrecked on Interstate 530, the report states.

A Pulaski County deputy first noticed the crash and pulled over to investigate, an incident report provided by the sheriff’s office spokeswoman said. That deputy encountered a man, later identified as Rayshawn Jackson, 22, who said he had stolen and drive the car, the report said.

The deputy arrested Jackson as Arkansas State Police troopers arrived to assist, and contacted Little Rock police, who confirmed that a vehicle had been stolen.

Little Rock police took Jackson in for questioning, but he refused to talk to police, the Little Rock police report states. He was taken to the UAMS Medical Center emergency room and checked for injuries, but was medically clear and “found to be healthy enough to be in jail,” the report states.

Jackson was being held in the Pulaski County jail Tuesday evening on two felony charges of theft of property — one for the patrol vehicle and one for the firearm — and a misdemeanor failure to appear charge in lieu of a $3,000 bond, an online inmate roster showed.

There was no evidence that Jackson forced his way into the patrol vehicle, the incident report states. It appeared Jackson lost control of the vehicle and struck a concrete wall, causing “extensive damage.”