After a recent spike in gun violence, the Little Rock Police Department is adding four patrol units in high-crime areas of the city, the interim police chief said Saturday.
Four officers will begin working overtime shifts in areas where there have been high concentrations of gun violence or other violent crimes, interim Police Chief Alice Fulk said at a news conference Saturday on West Charles Bussey Avenue, where a man was shot and killed just hours earlier.
West Charles Bussey Avenue is about midway between Interstate 630 and West Roosevelt Road.
A shooting on that street Friday night was the city's last homicide for November, the deadliest month this year for Little Rock, during which 10 people in 28 days died as the result of violence. Fulk said investigators have no reason to believe that all of the November shootings are related.
Friday night's drive-by shooting that killed Leon Mitchell Jr., 37, was the second gun death of the day in Little Rock. Devan Sprawling, 20, died of a gunshot wound in his head Friday morning.
Including the death of Mark Riller, 18, who was found shot Monday in his apartment at Eastview Terrace Apartments on Geyer Street, there were three homicides last week in the city.
Little Rock's homicide rate is still far below the 55 deaths in 2017, Fulk said, but the recent rise is troubling.
"I decided to [start additional patrols] last night," Fulk said Saturday. "I think it's time we get ahead of this."
Officers answered a call of a shooting in progress at 9:10 p.m. Friday at 2117 W. Charles Bussey Ave., where a gunman in a red SUV had shot two people, according to a news release from the Police Department.
Mitchell was found lying on the porch of his residence with multiple gunshot wounds when officers arrived. He died before emergency personnel could transport him to a hospital.
The second person shot was Rodney Holloway, 22, who was taken to UAMS Medical Center. He was listed in critical condition Friday night, the news release said.
On Saturday, the house on West Charles Bussey Avenue was quiet. Two no-trespassing signs framed a shattered glass door on the concrete porch where officers had found Mitchell. The interior wooden door had a jagged hole near the bottom and a small strip of police measuring tape beneath it, indicating where officers had removed a bullet.
The houses closest to Mitchell's appeared abandoned, with dark ivy shoots climbing their walls and signs warding off entry. Across the street was an empty, grassy hill. Nearby on Schiller Street, a neighbor who asked not to be identified said she heard 10 shots Friday night about 5 minutes before police arrived.
Al Cross, who has lived in the neighborhood near the homicide scene for more than 40 years, said the community has good and bad portions. Cross described the area as "high crime" but said there are also older residents who have deep familial ties there.
Cross said he did not go around the corner, where Mitchell lived, because he did not "want to be a part of what's going on over there."
[INTERACTIVE MAP: Search all killings in Little Rock, North Little Rock this year]
On Nov. 30 last year, a man was shot in his calf in the same block, according to previous reports. Officers reported finding 10 bullet holes in two vehicles where that man was shot.
Fulk said the Police Department will use data to determine areas where shootings, homicides and robberies are more concentrated and where known drug affiliates and drug deals occur. The purpose is not, she said, to make arrests or issue tickets for traffic stops, littering and other minor criminal activity.
"Our goal is not only to prevent but to reduce violent crime," Fulk said. "I want to make sure the community understands our purpose is not to re-victimize the community."
Along with hopes of preventing violent crime, the effort should help get officers into neighborhoods and build relationships, she said.
After a triple homicide at 14th and Peyton streets on Nov. 16, Fulk urged people to call in with tips and for witnesses to tell police what they saw. At the news conference Saturday, Fulk said the department had received several tips regarding that case, but she did not say whether the tips led to the identification of Joshua Milik Williams as a suspect.
On Wednesday, the department charged Williams, 21, with three counts of first-degree murder and a count of first-degree battery in the deaths of Kennelle Anderson, 20; Latija Luckey, 19; and Carrington Williams, 19, who were found shot in a wrecked Jeep Renegade near 4405 W. 14th St. Williams is still being sought and is considered armed and dangerous.
Metro on 12/02/2018