Judge: Officers correct, gun-case evidence stays

Two Little Rock police officers working on an anti-violence task force were cleared Tuesday of accusations of wrongdoing leveled by a man who said they had exceeded their authority to pull him over in a November traffic stop that ended in his arrest.

During a hearing to suppress evidence, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza ruled that the officers, part of the police Violent Crimes Apprehension Team, acted appropriately because they were on special assignment to discourage further gun violence after the still-unsolved homicide of a 2-year-old girl in southwest Little Rock.

There was no dispute that Eric Benard Rounds, 34, was doing nothing wrong on Nov. 26 when police stopped his black Dodge Charger in the 4100 block of 12th Street.

Rounds, a felon with a history of drug and property crimes, was arrested when police saw a gun in his car after pulling him over.

The Violent Crimes Apprehension Team was on special assignment in that neighborhood to prevent further shootings in the wake of the Nov. 22 slaying of Ramiya Reed.

The toddler was fatally shot while riding in a car on South Harrison Street near East Charles Bussey Avenue with her mother, a family friend and two other children.

More than five months later, the case remains unsolved, despite the offer of a $40,000 reward.

Rounds is charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm.

His attorney, Theodis Thompson, argued that prosecutors should be barred from using the weapon as evidence because police had improperly obtained it.

Thompson said police had only targeted Rounds because he was a felon in a high-crime area and they were looking for an excuse to search his car.

But the judge ruled that the officers had acted appropriately, agreeing with the legal analysis of deputy prosecutor Jennifer Corbin.

She told Piazza that police were correct to inquire into Rounds’ presence in the neighborhood, given that they knew him to be a felon and that they knew that two days earlier someone had tried to rob and shoot him in the same area, near 11th and Rice streets.

Rounds had declined to cooperate with police in that Nov. 24 incident, she said. So the officers were right to be concerned when they saw him on Nov. 26 driving in the 2400 block of West 11th Street that there was a possibility he could have returned to the area to retaliate against whomever he blamed for the incident, she said.

The suspicious way Rounds and his passenger were acting after the car had stopped gave police further grounds to detain him, Corbin said.

They had further developed the right to search the car once officers saw evidence that a crime was being committed, which was the discovery of a Colt 1911 .45-caliber pistol in plain sight between the driver’s seat and the center console, she told the judge.

Rounds did not testify, but his lawyer told the judge that police just jumped to conclusions about his client, who was actually minding his own business and not doing anything wrong.

Rounds was back in the area because he has family living there, not to cause trouble, Thompson said.

The attorney told the judge the officers reported that Rounds was stopped because they believed he had an active arrest warrant. If they’d bothered to check before pulling him over, the officers would have known he hasn’t been in trouble with the law for some time, Thompson told the judge.

“They just want to get in my client’s car because they know him to be a convicted felon,” Thompson said. “Just because he’s in a high-crime area, they don’t have a right to stop him. Just because he’s a convicted felon, it doesn’t mean he’s out for retaliation.”

Sgt. Jeffery Plunkett, who arrested Rounds, testified that he was alerted to Rounds being in the area and was investigating Rounds’ presence there as part of his duties to discourage more shootings.

He said he became suspicious of the defendant when Rounds was slow to obey his command to keep his hands up. Plunkett told the judge he grew more suspicious because both Rounds and his passenger, 29-year-old Lashaundra Shay Farmer, were moving around in their seats like they were trying to hide something.

For safety reasons, he ordered them out of the car at gunpoint, after which he saw the Colt pistol, he said.

Farmer was not charged. Court records show she lives on 11th Street, near where Rounds was seen driving the night of his arrest.

Officer Irving Jackman, the officer who brought Rounds to Plunkett’s attention, testified he had encountered Rounds while on patrol on Nov. 24. He said he heard five shots fired and, while trying to find the source of the gunfire, came across Rounds.

Jackman said he learned those shots had been fired at Rounds, who was obviously “highly stressed.” Jackman told the judge he was concerned by Rounds’ lack of interest in making a report about what happened.

On Nov. 26, Jackman said, when he saw Rounds driving in the same area, he said he advised Plunkett by radio about the earlier robbery and shooting attempt.