LITTLE ROCK — After a nearly three-hour standoff Thursday morning, Little Rock SWAT officers entered a house looking for a suspect who wasn’t there.
Officers entered the 3919 St. James Court home looking for Dexter “D Money” Thrower, who fled from the house sometime after he opened fire on three acquaintances at 8:36 a.m., according to police.
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SWAT responds after shooting in LR
SWAT is on the scene after a shooting in a home in Little Rock in a neighborhood near Shackleford Road.
Special Weapons and Tactics officers came to the west Little Rock neighborhood around 9 a.m. after patrol officers responded to a call of a robbery in progress at the address.
According to accounts obtained by police, Thrower, 36, was hosting two women and one man that morning, and the four were drinking and smoking “K-2,” a synthetic marijuana that was outlawed in Arkansas last March.
At some point, Thrower went to his room to get some money, but could not find it, department spokesman Sgt. Cassandra Davis said. Thrower rejoined the group, armed with a shotgun and started yelling at the other three, demanding “Where is the fn’ money at?”
Thrower then told the three to “strip,” the report said, and they took off their clothes at gunpoint.
Police said he fired several rounds from the shotgun, but did not hit anyone, before the three fled the home.
A witness told police he saw Thrower run into the woods behind the residence, but police were later told that Thrower may have gone back in and barricaded the house.
Davis said the witnesses gave conflicting accounts of what happened, making it difficult for investigators to assess the situation and that officers followed procedure by bringing in the department’s SWAT team.
“We have to assume he’s there, just for the neighborhood’s safety,” Davis said.
Police patrolled area neighborhoods and searched nearby woods for Thrower while SWAT officers waited outside his home. Davis said Thrower could have driven away, been picked up or eluded authorities on foot.
Thrower, a 5-foot-9-inch, 190-pound black man, was last seen in black pants and no shirt, and may be armed with a handgun, a shotgun, a rifle or a combination of the weapons, Davis said.
Thrower was paroled from state prison in November after serving five years of a 15-year sentence from Pulaski County Circuit Court on various drug and weapons charges, police said.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 03/23/2012