CABOT, Ark. (AP) — A handcuffed parolee who had been frisked opened fire on law enforcement officers from the back of a patrol car, according to an Arkansas Corrections official, provoking a return of gunfire that left the man dead.
It was not clear if he was carrying a gun when he was cuffed, and the corrections official said officers had not found a gun on him. The Arkansas State Police is investigating the shooting.
Corrections and Lonoke County sheriff’s officers had been looking for an unrelated suspect Tuesday night in Cabot, which is about 25 miles northeast of Little Rock, when they searched Jonathan McIntosh at a home and discovered he was in possession of a white powder, said Dina Tyler, deputy director of the Arkansas Department of Community Correction. ADCC officers were assisting because the original suspect had outstanding warrants.
Authorities didn’t find a gun on McIntosh, who was on parole for a firearm possession conviction, Tyler said.
The officers cuffed the 35-year-old man’s hands behind him and put him in the back of the sheriff’s department patrol car, she said. McIntosh somehow got his cuffed hands in front of him and when two ADCC officers returned to the vehicle for follow-up questions, he started shooting at them with a subcompact pistol, Tyler said.
Tyler said she did not know the make and model of the weapon, but that it was not an ADDC firearm. State police spokesman Bill Sadler declined to comment on the provenance of the weapon. The sheriff’s office declined to comment.
The two officers and one sheriff’s department employee returned fire.
Neighbor Melissa Minchue was watching the movie “American Sniper” with her family and first thought the gunshots were part of the film.
“Right off the bat there were at least three shots and then seconds later — just long enough to register that it wasn’t fireworks— there were six to eight shots, maybe more,” Minchue said.
Terri Gately, the ex-wife of the man who owned the home, said she was next door when she heard shots. She said Sheriff John Staley, who spoke with her and others at the home afterward, fired at the suspect from the yard of the home next door where she was.
After the shooting, “(Sheriff) Staley yelled out ‘Who didn’t check him?'” Gately said.
An office spokesman declined to comment on the sheriff’s involvement.
McIntosh, who was shot multiple times, died at a hospital, Tyler said. No officers were injured.
Gately said neither McIntosh nor the man named in the warrant lived at the home, and that McIntosh was there to purchase a four-wheeler. The house sits in a residential area off the main street, a few blocks from both Cabot High School and an elementary school. Shattered vehicle glass still littered the driveway Wednesday of the one-story house decorated with wagon wheels.
McIntosh was set to finish parole on July 2 and had caused little trouble for law enforcement while in the corrections system, Tyler said. He was employed and had no disciplinary action in prison or since his parole in September 2014. He wasn’t allowed to possess firearms due to previous convictions including drug possession and theft by receiving.
The ADCC officers have been placed on administrative duties while state police investigate the shooting.
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