Campus lawman: ASU alert of shooter necessary

JONESBORO — Arkansas State University Police Capt. Jarrod Long called for an active-shooter alert after Brad Kenneth Bartelt drove onto the Jonesboro campus with a shotgun and propane tank Dec. 10 even though Bartelt never fired a shot.

Long testified Tuesday during the second day of Bartelt’s trial in Craighead County Circuit Court that he felt that Bartelt’s actions necessitated the alert.

Bartelt, 48, is charged with five counts of aggravated assault and one count each of making a terroristic threat and terroristic threatening. His defense is that he never posed a threat to anyone but himself.

He was arrested Dec. 10 after he held police at bay for an hour and a half in front of the Carl R. Reng Center on campus.

“We didn’t know what his intentions were at the time,” Long told Craighead County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Grant DeProw. “I thought it was best to warn [students] early.”

Bartelt’s defense attorney, Chet Dunlap of Trumann, said in his opening statement Monday that ASU officials overreacted when they issued the alert and that Bartelt meant only to harm himself not anyone else. He said the alert wasn’t warranted and caused undue panic among students and university officials.

Police said Bartelt drove his green Chevrolet pickup onto a grassy area on the east side of the Reng student union center about 1 p.m. Dec. 10 and, while holding a 12-gauge shotgun, told students to leave the area.

Police said he displayed a flag on his truck and poured gasoline in the truck’s bed where he had a propane tank. Authorities feared that Bartelt could ignite the gasoline and cause an explosion.

Bartelt was angry at ASU because he was injured in 2012 while enrolled in a commercial truck driving course at ASU-Newport, DeProw said in the state’s opening statements Monday. Bartelt had become pinned under a tractor-trailer while removing a barrel that another student driver had struck while training. The student drove forward, dragging Bartelt more than 20 feet before stopping. Bartelt was flown by medical helicopter to a Memphis hospital where he was listed in critical condition. He spent 28 days recuperating there.

DeProw outlined the ASU Police Department’s active-shooter alert policy Tuesday, which calls for the issuance of email and text messages to students, and faculty and staff members in several instances, including “terroristic incidents” and cases of “armed intruders.”

Bartelt called Jonesboro’s 911 center when he drove onto the campus and said he meant only to harm himself, but Long said calling for the campus alert was justified.

“[Bartelt] had a weapon,” Long said. “He was an armed intruder.”

Dunlap said Bartelt posed no real threat because he sat isolated in his truck dozens of yards from anyone.

“He did not use deadly force,” Dunlap said. “When the active-shooter alert went out, that’s when students began running. Why not just put out an alert that there was an armed man on campus, or a detained man?”

On redirect examination, DeProw asked Long about his issuance of the alert.

“Would it have been better to wait for Mr. Bartelt to shoot someone before issuing the alert?” the deputy prosecutor asked.

“No, it wouldn’t,” Long responded.

Earlier Tuesday, prosecutors played a recording of Bartelt’s phone call to the Jonesboro 911 center informing police that he was on the campus with a shotgun.

“You might want to get someone up here,” Bartelt told dispatcher Linda Gann, who was the state’s first witness Tuesday.

He told Gann that he had a “shotgun, a propane tank and one bullet.”

“I thought it was a joke,” Gann said. “I didn’t believe this could be happening in Jonesboro, in our little town.