ASU-standoff suspect charged

He faces 3 felonies; plea not yet decided, attorney says

Brad Bartelt, 47, is shown in this photo.
Brad Bartelt, 47, is shown in this photo.

A man who police said brandished a shotgun and threatened to blow up a propane tank during a standoff at Arkansas State University's campus in Jonesboro last month was charged Thursday with three felonies.

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Brad Bartelt, 47, of Jonesboro was charged in Craighead County Circuit Court with making a terrorist threat, criminal possession of explosive material or a destructive device, and terroristic threatening.

Prosecuting Attorney Scott Ellington said Bartelt, who remained jailed Thursday in lieu of $50,000 bond, would be arraigned Jan. 29.

Theodor Stricker, Bartelt's attorney, said Thursday that he has not decided on a plea but said the allegations against his client were not true.

Armed with a 12-gauge shotgun, Bartelt was arrested Dec. 10 about an hour after he drove onto the campus and held police at bay for much of the hour before surrendering without injuring anyone, authorities said.

As a result, police locked down the campus during final-exam week and evacuated the nearby Carl Reng Student Union.

In a probable-cause affidavit accompanying the charges, Jonesboro police detective Mike Branscum wrote that Bartelt was upset about being critically injured in 2012 while he was taking a commercial truck-driving course at ASU-Newport. Bartelt told police that he wasn't treated correctly and was not paid for certain injury-related expenses.

Branscum wrote that Bartelt pointed his shotgun at a propane tank several times and threatened to blow up the tank. Bartelt also poured gasoline on his truck, police said.

"He stated that he was going to come to the university and shoot other people but he realized that murder would be wrong, so he was going to kill himself," Branscum wrote.

Bartelt also said he had been "seeing demons in the woods around his house and had tried to photograph them but was not able to get their pictures," Branscum added.

Under Arkansas law, making a terrorist threat carries a sentence of up to 30 years; criminal possession of explosive material or destructive device, up to 20 years; and terroristic threatening, up to six years, Ellington said in a news release.

"The only person that was being terrorized was himself," Stricker said. "He went there intending to take his own life. And he did have a firearm, but it was to take his own life" and it "was pointed at his head. ... He was suffering from mental issues."

Stricker said his client underwent a psychiatric evaluation Wednesday.

"He still is not doing well," the attorney said.

Stricker said Bartelt had called him the day before the standoff about his application for Social Security Disability benefits.

"He was extremely depressed," Stricker said.

Asked about the propane tank, Stricker said, "As far as I know, he didn't have any propane tanks." Asked again, Stricker said he didn't know if all of the information in the affidavit was correct.

Stricker is also Bartelt's attorney in a divorce petition filed Dec. 30 against Cynthia Bartelt.

Details of the divorce proceeding were not available online, but an employee in the Craighead County circuit clerk's office said the complaint's contents were nothing out of the ordinary.

Stricker said the couple had been married only "a couple months."

Nothing in the divorce petition is related to the criminal case, Stricker said.

State Desk on 01/08/2016

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