A man holding his ex-wife and their 4-year-old daughter at knifepoint in the cab of a pickup truck was arrested Wednesday after a state police hostage negotiator "secured" the man and he was disarmed, a state police spokesman said.
Jeffrey Pearson, 30, of Clinton, was being held Wednesday night in the Van Buren County jail at Clinton on a kidnapping charge after the 12-hour standoff on the parking lot of the Choctaw post office, a couple miles south of Clinton, according to Arkansas State Police spokesman Bill Sadler.
Sadler said he didn't have the names of either Pearson's ex-wife or daughter, or the hostage negotiator who brought the tense scene its conclusion.
Sadler also said he had not been told what method the negotiator used to take physical control of Pearson and prevent him from using the knife on his ex-wife or daughter. Sadler also said he didn't know whether Pearson had threatened his daughter or his ex-wife, or both.
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State police were asked to send a SWAT team to the scene about 11 a.m., Sadler said, after sheriff's deputies had been dealing for several hours with a situation that began before dawn.
"It became apparent that time was on the side of law enforcement, so state police hostage negotiators were called in," Sadler said.
He said that, over the course of several hours, the negotiator moved closer and closer to the open window of the truck in which Pearson, his former wife and their daughter were sitting.
"By late afternoon, he was standing at the cab window," Sadler said. "The negotiator saw an opportunity, reached into the cab and secured Mr. Pearson."
Pearson was quickly disarmed and arrested, Sadler said.
According to Sadler, sheriff's deputies were alerted to the situation by a friend concerned about Pearson's behavior in the early morning hours after midnight.
The woman and child were checked over by medical authorities at the scene, then taken to the sheriff's office at Clinton for interviews by investigators, Sadler said.