Arraignment delayed in Fort Smith shooting

Hearing next week in woman’s slaying

Thursday, January 3, 2013

— The Sebastian County Circuit Court arraignment of a Fort Smith man charged with murder was postponed Wednesday while he tries to hire a lawyer, according to the prosecuting attorney’s office.

Circuit Judge Mike Fitzhugh rescheduled the arraignment for Jonathan Jackson to Wednesday.

Jackson, 23, was being held in the Sebastian County jail Wednesday in lieu of $250,000 bond on charges of first-degree murder and committing a terroristic act.

Jackson is accused in the fatal shooting Friday afternoon of Aleya Criswell, 21, while she sat in a van with six other people near a northFort Smith intersection. She died shortly afterward at Sparks Regional Medical Center after suffering a single gunshot wound in her lower back.

The terroristic act charge, a felony, stems from Jackson shooting at the other people in the van, according to reports. No one else in the van was injured in the shooting, police said.

Police detective David Williams interviewed three of the van occupants after the shooting. According to his report, Criswell’s brother, Tramell Rone, 18, said he, Aleya Criswell, Tino Carvay Criswell, 20, and Kimber Nicole Knotts, 21, decided to go to Martin Luther King Park sometime after 2 p.m.Saturday. He said they were picked up by a van occupied by Terry Lee Knotts, 37, Taylor Knotts, 12, and Javonte Tranell Barnum, 17.

They drove to the park and stayed for a short time, Rone told the detective, but they then left because it was cold. After leaving, they drove by North L Street and May Avenue, he said, where they saw two men alongside the road.

Rone said he knew one of the men, Steven Derrick Massey, 20, according to his statement to Williams. He said he once dated Jade Knotts, the mother of Massey’s daughter, and said Massey was upset that Rone still hung out with her.

Massey was related to some of the van’s occupants, but police have not sorted out all the relationships, police detective Jeff Carter said.

Rone said he didn’t know the other man, Jackson, whowas with Massey, according to Williams’ report.

Rone told Williams that as the van drove past the two men, Massey began pointing at the van and Jackson pulled out a gun and started shooting at it.

Aleya Criswell called out that she had been shot, Rone said. He said he called 911 and handed the phone to Kimber Knotts to talk to the police while the van headed to the hospital to get help for Criswell.

In a probable-cause affidavit by Carter, Jackson is quoted as saying Massey had told him that he had been threatened by some people. Massey pointed at the van as it drove past and said, “There they go,” Jackson told police. He thought Massey was referring to thepeople who were threatening him, Jackson said.

According to the affidavit, Jackson said he pulled out a .380-caliber handgun and fired all the bullets in the ammunition clip at the van.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 01/03/2013