CONWAY — Authorities have been asked whether former Hendrix College President J. Timothy Cloyd violated state law when he refused to turn over a gun that Conway police said an intoxicated Cloyd pointed toward an officer who was trying to arrest an intruder in Cloyd’s home.
The event occurred shortly after midnight Dec. 26, but didn’t become public knowledge until this week, just days after Cloyd, 51, stepped down as the private college’s 10th president.
LaTresha Woodruff, spokesman for the Conway Police Department, said in an e-mail that “a request was made to Arkansas State Police to review the case to determine if there were any violations of the conceal [gun] carry law.”
“But at this time we have not gotten an answer one way or the other,” Woodruff added.
As of Monday, a James Cloyd in the 72032 ZIP code, which covers much of Conway, still had a concealedgun permit, according to a state police list. Timothy Cloyd’s first name is James.
In an e-mail Tuesday, Frank Cox, executive vice president and a spokesman for Hendrix College, said, “President Cloyd’s recent announcement to step down as president was not a result of the incident in his home.”
No one answered the door Tuesday afternoon at Cloyd’s home on Winfield Street, and he does not have a listed phone number in Conway.
According to a 21-page police report, officers were responding to a burglary at a real-estate business and determined the burglar had abandoned a truck, fled into Cloyd’s nearby home and locked himself in a bathroom.
Officers, who tracked the man’s footprints in several inches of snow, entered Cloyd’s home “with our firearms drawn,” officer Timothy Gray wrote.
“Once inside the house, I observed Tim Cloyd ... running around his dining room table with a small firearm,” Gray added. “As a uniformed officer, I gave Mr. Cloyd an order to put down his weapon and he responded ‘F* you this is my house.’”
Officer Andrew James wrote that police repeatedly ordered Cloyd to put down the .380-caliber gun “as it wasnearly pointed at an officer’s back with his [Cloyd’s] finger in the trigger guard.”
At one point, officer Daniel Mullaney wrote, “Cloyd pointed his weapon at the [bathroom] door and said ‘I’m going to kill that m f** myself.’”
“Mr. Cloyd appeared to be unsteady on his feet and the muzzle of the gun was waving around,” wrote police Lt. T.G. Cooper, who said he grabbed the gun when Cloyd raised the muzzle toward the ceiling.
By this time, six or more officers were at the house, and police could hear the burglary suspect, later identified as William Carter, yelling from the bathroom, “‘I am going to kill myself,’” the report said.
Police kicked the bathroom door in and found Carter, 30, lying in the bathtub with broken glass - apparently from a framed picture Carter told authorities he had broken over his head in a suicide attempt.
Cloyd later told police the portrait was worth $3,000.
As Carter was being searched, “he began dry heaving and foaming at the mouth as his eyes closed,” James wrote.
Police summoned emergency medical help and had Carter taken to a hospital. He later was taken to the Faulkner County jail.
Cooper said he asked Cloyd if they could talk and introduced himself: “Before I could finish he yelled ‘I don’t care who the f* you are! This is my f house and one of you took my f gun!’”
After Cloyd continued to yell at him, Cooper said, he told Cloyd “that he was obstructing my investigation.”
“He then yelled that [this] was his house and that he was a concealed carry permit holder,” Cooper wrote. “I toldhim that I would be notifying the Arkansas State Police so they could review the incident. He stopped yelling at that time.”
Cooper said Cloyd’s wife, Wendy, “told me that it was Christmas time and asked me not to contact [Arkansas State Police]. I advised her that I had no choice since he [Cloyd] had put the officers on scene at risk.”
James wrote that after the suspect was taken away and he had more time to observe Cloyd more closely, it was clear Cloyd “was highly intoxicated.”
Cox said Hendrix College had “no comment on the specifics of the incident.” But he added, “We are most grateful that the Conway police were able to resolve the situation, take the intruder into custody, and that no one was harmed.”
According to the report, Carter had reportedly walkedup to the house where he told Wendy Cloyd that he was a felon who had been in a car wreck and asked if he could use her phone.
Timothy Cloyd later told police that they had been entertaining some international students on Christmas and had originally thought one of them was returning for something forgotten.
Police indicated that Carter denied being the burglar but said he conceded he had been driving the truck, which he said he had found parked with its keys inside while he was taking a walk in the snow about midnight. He has not yet gone to trial, Woodruff said.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 8 on 02/20/2013