Correction: Little Rock police arrested Amber Rice, 21, on Monday for the April 21 shooting that injured Zachary Buchanan. An item below incorrectly identified the suspect and victim.
Fire-setting taped at shop, police say
Surveillance cameras at a Little Rock smoke shop recorded the store’s owner setting it ablaze in November, police reported.
Yazeed Barakat, 34, who owned Smoker’s Corner at 1801 Green Mountain Drive, was arrested Tuesday and charged with arson.
A fire Nov. 27 caused more than $300,000 in damage to the shop, which sold tobacco products and a variety of smoking accessories including pipes, hookahs and bongs.
Barakat was recorded on store surveillance cameras igniting the contents of a trash can before leaving the shop, according to an arrest report.
In an interview with investigators, Barakat purportedly said he set the fire for financial reasons.
Barakat was being held at the Pulaski County jail late Tuesday with bail set at $35,000.
LR officers turn up suspect in shooting
A Little Rock woman accused of shooting a man point blank in the neck was arrested Monday night after a several-week search by detectives.
Little Rock police arrested April Rice, 21, of 4620 W. 28th St. about 7 p.m. at 2016 Brown St. She was charged with first-degree battery in the April 21 shooting of James Buchanon.
Police found Buchanon, 22, lying in the 3000 block of Adams Street with a gunshot wound in the neck. Three days later, detectives met with the man in the hospital, and he told detectives that he had known his shooter “all of his life.”
Buchanon said Rice “thinks that he had sex with her ex-girlfriend” and that days before he was shot, she had texted threats to him, including one that said “u better stay strapped cuz… I gta handle u,” according to arrest affidavits.
Detectives obtained an arrest warrant for Rice on April 25 but didn’t find her until Monday.
She was booked in at the Pulaski County jail where she was being held Tuesday in lieu of $200,000 bond.
Gunman grabs cash in LR bank robbery
Police are investigating the armed robbery Tuesday of a U.S. Bank branch in Little Rock.
About 1:30 p.m., a man with a black handgun held up the bank at 5200 Kavanaugh Road, netting some cash, according to police spokesman Lt. Sidney Allen. No injuries were reported.
The robber is described as black, 5 feet 5 inches tall, 130 pounds and in his late teens or early 20s. He wore a black hooded shirt with white sleeves.
Further details on the robbery were unavailable late Tuesday.
Shoplifters target Kmart twice in day
A northwest Little Rock retailer dealt with two shoplifters-turned-robbers in just over two hours Monday evening.
Little Rock officers went to the Kmart store at 10901 N. Rodney Parham Road about 4:10 p.m. for a report about someone who had fought his way past store security.
According to store employees, several witnesses spotted a thief grabbing a box of Ghirardelli chocolates and a pocketknife and heading for the exit.
When store security intervened, the man pushed his way out of the store and fled west.
At 6:29 p.m., officers returned for a report of a man spotted stuffing candy in his pants.
When confronted, the thief punched an employee in the face and ran north from the store.
The first shoplifter was described as white, 5 feet 11 inches tall, 170 pounds, 40-something and wore khaki shorts, a red checkered shirt, blue bandanna and flip-flops.
The second robber was described as a 5-foot-10 black man in his 40s.
Shot in drive-by, two out of hospital
Two men shot in a drive-by early Monday have left the hospital, but one still has a slug in his torso, according to police.
The two victims showed up at Baptist Health Medical Center’s emergency room about 1 a.m. and told detectives they were outside a friend’s house in the 9200 block of Cynthia Drive in Little Rock when a dark-colored sport utility vehicle pulled up and someone started shooting.
A 17-year-old victim, who Little Rock police did not identify, said he was shaken up and remembered little other than car doors slamming and then two gunshots.
The 17-year-old was wounded in the leg.
His friend, Darren Lewis, 19, was shot in the back, and according to police reports, the bullet “just barely” missed his spinal column.
When asked if they or their friends had been fighting with anyone recently, Lewis “started talking about gangs and affiliations” but did not specify what gang or what dealing may have prompted the shooting, according to police.
Police said Lewis left the hospital “with the bullet still lodged in his torso.”
No witnesses could provide a description of the gunman and the shooting remains under investigation.
Metro on 05/14/2014