Sunday, April 16, 2006
UPDATED: Shooting on Murray Park
It happened about 5:45PM Sunday afternoon. A family was having a picnic just north of the dog park when, according to eyewitnesses, a masked man got out of a truck and shot another man at close range. This was in broad daylight. Must have been 30 witnesses. Marie and I were in the dog park with Molly, who is just fine.
It took a long time for police and medical help to arrive. Also, there were many efforts to call 9-1-1 and it can be tricky on a cell phone. My emergency call was somehow directed at first to Garland County. My next attempt went to North Little Rock, which has VERY professional dispatchers and they relayed my call to Little Rock and even advised the Little Rock dispatcher that my call had additional information. I handed the phone to a witness with a getaway vehicle description.
Condition of the victim is unknown. Police seemed to peruse a suspect vehicle.
More details later.
UPDATE: Obviously, I got my times wrong when I posted yesterday evening. The incident happened shortly before 7 PM. Sgt. Hastings told me this morning that the victim was shot in the leg and chest, which means there were TWO shots. Everybody in the dog park remembers only one, but that just goes to show how unreliable eye-witness testimony can be.
The NLR PD got my first cell call at 6:52. the LRPD reports the first call at 6:54, which sould seem logical since NLR switches my call, and several others, to LRPD.
My first 9-1-1 call was taken by Garland County, My second one by Pulaski County. This would add at least two minutes to the timeline. That means my first call was placed at 6:50. I believe the shooting occured about 1 minute before I made that initial call, 6:49.
Here is the problem. I know that others were also calling 9-1-1 before me, but I called because I was with somebody who had a description of the getaway car. Is it possible that it took FIVE critical minutes for a call to get through to the Little Rock 9-1-1 center?
Also, the pickup truck was pulled over on Rebsemen Park Rd. and not a service station.
It took a long time for police and medical help to arrive. Also, there were many efforts to call 9-1-1 and it can be tricky on a cell phone. My emergency call was somehow directed at first to Garland County. My next attempt went to North Little Rock, which has VERY professional dispatchers and they relayed my call to Little Rock and even advised the Little Rock dispatcher that my call had additional information. I handed the phone to a witness with a getaway vehicle description.
Condition of the victim is unknown. Police seemed to peruse a suspect vehicle.
More details later.
UPDATE: Obviously, I got my times wrong when I posted yesterday evening. The incident happened shortly before 7 PM. Sgt. Hastings told me this morning that the victim was shot in the leg and chest, which means there were TWO shots. Everybody in the dog park remembers only one, but that just goes to show how unreliable eye-witness testimony can be.
The NLR PD got my first cell call at 6:52. the LRPD reports the first call at 6:54, which sould seem logical since NLR switches my call, and several others, to LRPD.
My first 9-1-1 call was taken by Garland County, My second one by Pulaski County. This would add at least two minutes to the timeline. That means my first call was placed at 6:50. I believe the shooting occured about 1 minute before I made that initial call, 6:49.
Here is the problem. I know that others were also calling 9-1-1 before me, but I called because I was with somebody who had a description of the getaway car. Is it possible that it took FIVE critical minutes for a call to get through to the Little Rock 9-1-1 center?
Also, the pickup truck was pulled over on Rebsemen Park Rd. and not a service station.
