FAYETTEVILLE -- An attorney for an Oklahoma man charged with fleeing police and endangering his child asked Monday for a mental competency exam for his client.
Alan Lewis Crawford, 28, is charged in Washington County Circuit Court with felony fleeing and misdemeanor charges of endangering the welfare of a minor and two counts of possession of a controlled substance. Crawford pleaded not guilty Wednesday and was given an initial court date of Aug. 25.
Mental competence
A term applied to a person’s mental ability and choosing right from wrong and having the ability to express themselves.
Source: thelawdictionary.org
Blake Chancellor, Crawford's lawyer, filed motions Monday for a fitness to proceed exam and a mental competency exam. He also filed notice he intends to raise a defense of mental disease or defect.
Circuit Judge Mark Lindsay on Monday signed an order for a mental examination.
Crawford of Muldrow, Okla., also is known as Omar Usman Khalid. He is being held at the Washington County Detention Center.
The fleeing charge is related to Alan Crawford and his wife, Daphne, evading police who were trying to arrest them on Dickson Street the night of of June 17. Prosecutors say Alan Crawford drove a car through a parking lot at a high rate of speed, putting a number of pedestrians at risk.
The Crawfords were arrested the following morning at the Value Place motel on North College Avenue.
The controlled substances include a "usable amount of THC wax" and three clonazepam tablets, according to the charging document. THC is the active ingredient in marijuana, and clonazepam is an anti-anxiety medicine.
The endangering charge is related to the clonazepam tablets and a gun being within reach of the Crawfords' young child in the motel room, the document says.
Crawford was arrested by Fayetteville police and the FBI on a preliminary charge of simultaneous possession of drugs and firearms. Prosecuting Attorney Matt Durrett said he does not anticipate filing charges related to the weapons found in the motel room.
Officers found three AR-15 assault rifles, a 12-gauge shotgun, six handguns and roughly 2,000 rounds of ammunition, including 721 rounds for the assault rifles, according to police reports.
Durrett said the guns appear to be legal. To support a guns and drugs possession charge, there had to have been a felony amount of drugs or evidence Alan Crawford was selling drugs, and neither was the case, Durrett said.
Daphne Crawford, 29, was indicted by a federal grand jury and is charged with making threats of violence against someone using the Internet. She and her husband got into a verbal altercation with a waitress at a Prairie Grove diner last month, according to the indictment. A customer posted a comment on Facebook about the incident.
Daphne Crawford responded online and said her husband would shoot the customer and his or her family, according to court documents. Crawford sent the person a photo of her husband dressed in Middle Eastern attire holding an assault rifle. Both Crawfords say they are Muslim converts.
Daphne Crawford, also known as Daphne Ridenour and Umm Ammara Khalid, also is being held at the Washington County Detention Center.
NW News on 07/19/2016