In a 45-minute police recording played Thursday in Pulaski County Circuit Court, a Little Rock man told detectives that he was so consumed with rage that he went on a three-hour shooting rampage to settle scores with relatives and acquaintances he said had wronged him.
No one was harmed in the November 2010 shootings, and Devinn Deshawn Sheppard, 30, told investigators that he didn’t want anyone hurt. He said he focused on shooting cars because he didn’t wantto hurt or scare the subjects of his rage, just cause them expensive damage.
“My intent was to make them pay for cars all over again,” he said on the recording. “I had so much anger ... in me that a lot of this stuff went on without me thinking. Family can hurt you more than anybody. I’m a young man that still needs his family’s attention.
“My intent never was to hurt anyone, other than to prove points. I never tried to put any harm in anyone’s flesh, not trying to make any blood run. When I wasdoing this, I was erratic and enraged.”
Sheppard, through his attorney Fernando Padilla, was in court Thursday to challenge the legality of the interview conducted by detectives Terrell Vaughn and J.C. White.
The judge found no wrongdoing by police, clearing the way for prosecutors to play the recording for jurors at Sheppard’s future trial on felony charges of unlawful discharge of a firearm, criminal mischief, terroristic threatening and committing a terroristic act with misdemeanor counts of violation of order of protection and harassment, which together carry a potential sentence of 171 years in prison upon conviction.
Sheppard was arrested after a standoff with a police SWAT team, five hours after shots were fired just before dawn at the Metropolitan National Bank Tower at 425 W. Capitol Ave., where Sheppard had once worked as a courier for the Mitchell, Williams, Selig, Gates & Woodyard law firm. Police also attributed three other shootings to him - one at an uncle’s home at Ridgewell and Oakleaf streets in Sherwood where two cars were struck, a second at an uncle’s home on Malloy Street in Little Rock where one car was shot, and a third at North Point Nissan in Little Rock where a sport utility vehiclewas shot. He also purportedly stopped along the way to urinate on the car of a former neighbor on Summit Ridge Drive in Little Rock and visit a friend at a day-care center on 12th Street.
Police investigating a complaint about Sheppard acting belligerently at the Marshall Street apartments where he lived called in the SWAT team when he refused to leave his apartment. After two hours, he surrendered, convinced to give himself up by Vaughn, a certified hostage negotiator.
In the interview played Thursday for Circuit Judge Barry Sims, Sheppard admitted to everything, although he said he didn’t mean to shoot the bank tower. Sheppard said he was aiming up in the air while police reported the bullets struck third-floor offices of a commercial real-estate firm.He also admitted to firing a gun in the air at North Point Nissan, although he denied deliberately targeting any vehicle there. He said he was angry at relatives who didn’t like his girlfriend and complained about how other victims had treated him poorly.
Padilla questioned whether the officers had adequately informed Sheppard of his rights to an attorney and to refuse to speak to detectives. Padilla also said police should have kept better records of who interacted with Sheppard during the five hours and 18 minutes he had to wait before detectives questioned him. Sheppard declined to testifyat the hearing.
Deputy prosecutor Kim Davis showed the judge a rights waiver signed twice by Sheppard, while White testified that Sheppard was so enraged after his arrest that detectives had to wait for him to calm down, although they did feed him at least once and he was allowed restroom breaks with an escort.
In the final minutes of the recording, Sheppard responded to a question from the detectives about how they had treated him by saying, “I’m on the wrong side of things. You guys have been very helpful to me. I ... wasn’t in my right mind.”
Sheppard was later charged with shooting into the home of former friends on Thayer Street in Little Rock that same day, court filings show.
The proceedings against Sheppard have taken so long because of questions about his mental health. Assessing his mental health, then treating the subsequent diagnosis of psychosis took about nine months in 2011. He was reported to have recovered but, after demonstrating symptoms of mental illness, doctors took another two months assessing his sanity, f inding him again to be psychotic. He was committed a third time last November, with doctors reporting within a month that he was fit for trial and had no mental illness. That December, reports attributed alcohol and drug use as a contributor to his behavior.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 02/25/2013