A Pulaski County jail inmate more than doubled the number of charges he faces and did more than $10,000 in damage when he set fire to his cell after smearing feces on its window Monday afternoon, investigators say.
Antwan Kemp, 24, was put in his cell about 12:30 p.m. after deputies said they caught him smoking inside the facility.
A little while later, deputies said, they noticed the “sub day,” a multipurpose room in every unit in the jail, was filling with smoke and soon discovered Kemp’s cell was on fire.
Kemp has been in the Pulaski County jail since October 2012, when he was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the Oct. 11, 2012, shooting of Deshawn Bell outside a North Little Rock apartment complex.
Since then, Kemp has racked up several additional charges. On Jan. 29, deputies reported finding Kemp with a weapon and charged him with possession or use of weapons by an incarcerated person, a Class D felony punishable by up to six years in prison.
On Oct. 24, he was charged with several counts of aggravated assault, which were later merged to a single count of second-degree battery in Pulaski County Circuit Court, after he purportedly fought with multiple deputies when they tried to deliver his lunch.
After Monday’s fire, Kemp was charged with possessing instruments of crime, reckless burning, disorderly conduct, criminal use of property and arson.
According to deputies’ reports, Kemp was on a one-hour break, but deputies cut it short after he was seen “smoking and blowing smoke into the camera” in the facility.
When a deputy confronted him, the reports state, Kemp “turned his back to me and appeared to take a hit from a cigarette and then threw it under” a different cell door.
According to sheriff ’s officials, smoking is only allowed in certain areas of the jail and not in the part of the facility where Kemp was staying.
While deputies walked Kemp back to his cell, he “became loud and extremely agitated” and said “ I’m gonna make you all call a code red,” which is a “medical call,” according to sheriff’s officials.
Kemp, who has been on suicide watch, stays by himself in a rubber-padded cell designed to keep inmates from hurting themselves. The cells have a built-in drain that can be flushed whenever an inmate needs to defecate.
At 1 p.m., a deputy did an hourly suicide-watch check on Kemp and noticed “there [were] feces smeared in his cell window,” reports state.
The deputy grabbed a mop and cleaning equipment and then noticed a “light cloud of smoke” floating along the ceiling.
The deputy reported thinking Kemp might be smoking again and noticing that his cell window was “extremely dark.” The deputy thought Kemp had “increased his thickness of feces to make it hard to see into his cell,” according to reports.
Upon closer inspection, the deputy saw orange lights flickering in Kemp’s cell and called for help, reports state. Deputies were able to put the fire out with fire extinguishers, officials said.
The fire’s origin remains under investigation, but sheriff’s officials said Kemp either used a “contraband lighter” or a “wick,” tightly rolled toilet paper that is lit and has a slowly burning ember.
Kemp is awaiting a mental-health examination in all of his felony cases pending in Circuit Court, including the 2012 murder case.
In that case, officers went to Silver City Courts apartments at 701 W. 18th St. in North Little Rock and found Bell lying lifeless with multiple gunshot wounds.
Kemp, who lived at 2001 Rock St. in Little Rock, was found at the complex and arrested.
During questioning, he admitted to police that Bell and he were arguing when he “displayed a handgun and fired multiple times,” police said.
Kemp had been out of prison for fewer than five months before his murder arrest. He served most of a six-year sentence for second-degree battery.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 12/25/2013