Innocent, says suspect in Christmas Eve killing

LITTLE ROCK — Watching her shackled son on a television monitor in North Little Rock District Court on Thursday, Angela Fitzpatrick shook her head, disbelievingly as Judge Jim Hamilton read the charges against him: capital murder, aggravated robbery, residential burglary, two counts of theft of property.

Laquan Javaris Fitzpatrick, 19, wearing the dark blue uniform of the Pulaski County jail, let his dreadlocks fall over his eyes as he leaned forward toward a camera, his wrists cuffed to a chain around his waist. Accused of killing Salvation Army Major Philip Wise on Christmas Eve in front of the man’s three children, Fitzpatrick faces the other charges because NorthLittle Rock police say that after his arrest Tuesday in Helena-West Helena, he admitted committing a burglary and a robbery. Thursday was his first appearance in court.

“That’s not my son,” Angela Fitzpatrick said after a brief hearing, during which her son pleaded innocent. “He’s not like that. He wouldn’t do that. He wasn’t raised and educated like that.”

Standing on stone steps outside, she pulled her thin brown sweater tighter across her shoulders to keep out a brisk wind. She fought tears.

“I haven’t been able to talk to him yet,” she said. “I don’t want to say too much. I don’t want to hurt his case. But I need to hear from his own mouth that he didn’t do it. He needs to tell me he didn’t do it.”

She said she felt for Wise’s family in the three months since he was shot behind the Salvation Army community center on West 18th Street.

“Nobody should have to deal with that,” she said.

But she said police interviewed her son several times and each time he hoped it would be the last time.

“Just because someonetold the police his name doesn’t mean he did it,” she said. “He talked to them every time they wanted to talk to him. It’s not right what they’re doing to him.”

North Little Rock police have said two men confronted Wise that afternoon and tried to rob him. They have not publicly identified the second suspect, nor have they said whether they believe Fitzpatrick fired the shot that killed Wise, 40.

During the hearing, Hamilton began on a friendly note.

“Hi, Mr. Fitzpatrick, how are you doing?” he said looking at a television monitor.

“Fine,” Fitzpatrick said quietly.

Hamilton read the charges. Fitzpatrick barely moved, looking down.

“Do you understand the very serious matters that we are here to talk about today?” Hamilton asked.

“Yes, sir,” Fitzpatrick said.

Hamilton ordered Fitzpatrick held in the Pulaski County jail without bail until his court-appointed attorney, Tracey Overman, can prepare for a bond hearing. Fitzpatrick is scheduled to appear again in North Little Rock District Court on April 28.

Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Caroline Bednar requested that Hamilton order no bail.

During the hearing, North Little Rock police detective Don Maggard, the lead investigator on the Wise case, said Fitzpatrick was a suspect in more robberies.

“He did admit to the one, although we suspected him in several others,” the detective said.

Bednar and Maggard toldHamilton that the case against Fitzpatrick relies on several witnesses, some of whom claim Fitzpatrick told them of his role in Wise’s death.

“That’s just crazy to me,” Angela Fitzpatrick said. “He didn’t tell anybody anything. They want to say maybe he told me something. I’ll tell you right now, he didn’t tell me anything and he didn’t tell anybody else anything either because it isn’t true.”

Jessica Drayer, 18, a friend of Fitzpatrick’s who was at the hearing, said he couldn’t have killed Wise because his girlfriend made him stop running around with guns after the robbery of a RadioShack store on Pike Avenue in November - the one police say he confessed to committing.

“He and [his girlfriend] baby-sit my daughter, you know what I’m saying, that stuff can’t be happening around my baby,” Drayer said, tucking her 11-month-old daughter, Naylia, into a car seat. “Laquan is my baby’s god daddy. He bought my baby shoes and he ain’t even the daddy. He’s a good person and he wouldn’t do nothing like killing nobody.”

Fitzpatrick values and celebrates life, Drayer said.

“I got pregnant when I was 16 and I wasn’t going to keep my baby,” she said. “Laquan was like, ‘Nuh-uh, you going to keep that baby - that’s going to be my god baby.’ He talked me out of it. Like I said, he’s a good person. He just caught up in something he didn’t do.” More information on the case can be found at arkansasonline.com/salvationarmyslaying/.