Probation is sentence in school disruption

— A mentally ill North Little Rock woman was sentenced to four years of probation and fined $1,500 Monday for disrupting an elementary school function in January with threats against people in attendance and fighting with a substitute teacher with whom she had quarreled.

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Whitney Williams, 35, also agreed to take anger management classes as part of her negotiated guilty plea to terroristic threatening and second-degree battery, charges that together carry a 12-year maximum. In exchange for Williams’ plea, prosecutors recommended the sentence to Pulaski County Circuit Judge Herb Wright and dropped a misdemeanor harassment charge involving the teacher.

Williams, the pregnant mother of four, was arrested Feb. 9 at the home of an acquaintance at 912 Greenlea Drive in North Little Rock after the Jan. 24 altercation during “Math Night” at Lynch Drive Elementary on Alpha Street in North Little Rock.

Williams, her fiance and her children were attending the event, according to police reports, when Williams and the teacher, Cheniqua Reynolds, got into an argument in the school cafeteria.

“They need to know I am crazy, I am bipolar and I have a .38 and I will shoot everybody,” court files show Williams said. “I will shoot kids, I will fight kids, I will fight parents. I don’t give a damn about the people. I will kill somebody. I will hurt somebody, and I will hurt one of these kids.”

School principal Phyllis McDonald became so concerned about Williams’ threats that she moved the children along the walls and told them to get down in preparation for a possible shooting, according to court files.

As Williams was leaving, she attacked Reynolds and the two fell on the ground fighting. Williams’ fiance, unnamed in the report, kicked Reynolds and gouged at her eyes, court files show. After the fight was broken up, Williams got something out of her car and was holding it by her side before leaving the scene.

Williams later told authorities that she and Reynolds had quarreled about a dispute involving their children and that Reynolds was the aggressor, asking her to step outside and fight and taking the first swing, according to court files.

In an interview with police, Williams denied having a gun or making threats that she had one, saying she had referred to her fists as “goons.”

Doctors at the State Hospital who examined her as part of the criminal proceedings diagnosed her as mentally ill with obsessive-compulsive disorder with a “chronic” obsession with cleanliness and antisocial personality disorder, noting that she has received disability payments since age 15 for bipolar disorder.

But doctors found that she knew right from wrong at the time of the school disturbance and was able to control her behavior, making her competent to stand trial, according to a mental evaluation filed with the court in October.

Arkansas, Pages 9 on 12/04/2012

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