LITTLE ROCK — Police say they have made no arrests and have no suspects after two separate shootings from late Sunday night that killed two North Little Rock men.
Sunday night’s and early Monday morning’s shootings mark the seventh and eighth homicides in North Little Rock this year although two of those shootings were ruled justified and another officer-involved shooting is still under review.
North Little Rock police spokesman Sgt. Terry Kuykendall said officers found the body of Isaac Williams, 26, lying beside a car parked in a lot at Marion and West 19th streets after responding to a 911 call that said shots had been fired near the basketball courts at Silver City Courts, 701 W. 18th St.
Kuykendall said Pulaski County coroners pronounced Williams dead at the scene just outside of the Silver City Courts housing complex.
Only a few hours later, officers in North Little Rock took another 911 call from a driver who said the passenger in his car had been shot.
Police arrived at the Shell gas station located at 4622 Camp Robinson Road about 1:30 a.m. Monday and found Brandon Monroe, 21, had been shot. Kuykendall said Monroe was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver, who has not been identified by authorities, was uninjured.
Kuykendall said investigators aren’t sure what types of guns were involved in the shootings. He couldn’t give a motive for the shootings, or descriptions of suspects, because other than Monroe’s driver, no witnesses have come forward to police with accounts of the incidents.
Williams’ death was the second this year to happen outside the Silver City Courts.
Cortez Brown, 31, was found in a grassy courtyard outside of the apartment complex on Sept. 16 with a gunshot wound to the chest. Brown died shortly later.
Brown’s death occurred just one day short of the anniversary of the death of Antonio Patterson, 20, who was shot in the face and his body was found outside Silver City Courts on Sept. 17, 2009.
Kuykendall said that his department has three full-time officers dedicated to handling North Little Rock’s public housing, and that those officers spend most of their time working out of the Silver City Courts.
He also said that the last three people shot and killed near the public housing projects did not live there.
“It’s not a problem with the residents, it’s a problem with the people coming there to hang out [and] do ... whatever it is that takes place there,” Kuykendall said.
Kuykendall also said that North Little Rock’s chief of police, Danny Bradley, will meet with the public housing authority to review policy and see what his department can do to better protect the community.
Despite the rarity of two shooting deaths inside a four hour window, North Little Rock investigators do not suspect the shootings were connected.
“Anything is possible,” Kuykendall said. “But based on the information we have right now, these shootings were not related.”
The last time North Little Rock police handled two murders in one day was Oct. 6, 2007, Kuykendall said, when Holber Chism, 28, was fatally stabbed by his fiancee in the 1400 block of Vine Street, and Steven Eugene Caldwell, 34, was beaten and run over in the Holiday Inn parking lot at 120 W. Pershing Blvd.
Kuykendall said that, at least in North Little Rock, homicides tend to cluster. Investigators will go months without a death, and then they’ll have two, three or even four in as many days.
“Clusters are common,” he said. “They’re not necessarily related, but they happen.”
Kuykendall said investigators didn’t think the shootings were gang-related, though he said they hadn’t ruled out drugs having played a role in the murders.
“Drugs are possible in these instances,” he said. “But for us to speculate as to whether this was drug-related, it’s too early at this point.”
North Little Rock has seen fewer homicides this year than over the past five years, according to Kuykendall. In 2006, there were 13, and that statistic peaked the following year at 17, dropped to nine in 2008, and rose slightly again to 13 in 2009.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 11/30/2010