An unidentified Louisiana man in town to work at River-Fest mutilated his face with a screwdriver Thursday morning and had to be stunned by officers in Riverfront Park, Little Rock police said.
The man, who police said is in his 30s, was among the dozens of vendors in the park preparing for the weekend event when witnesses said he hopped into the cab of his friend’s pickup and locked the door about 9:15 a.m.
Thomas Williams, who was unloading a truck and helping erect a gyro stand, saw the man lock the truck door and begin to stab himself in the mouth, nose and ears.
“He was going crazy on himself,” Williams said. “He had blood on his mouth … out his ears. … He kept spitting blood on the window, at us… screaming ‘Jesus help me! Jesus help me!’”
Sgt. Todd Vint confirmed that the truck, with blood spattered all over the driver’s-side window, belonged to either the man’s boss or a friend from Louisiana.
Vint said that after officers arrived, they told him to get out of the truck.
“We couldn’t see what he was doing … but he was stabbing himself in the face and he’d barricaded himself up in there,” Vint said. “It gave the impression that he was on some kind of a narcotic or having a mental breakdown or a combination of both.”
Vint said an officer used her baton to break the driver’s-side window and that another officer used a Taser through the break.
The man “hopped” out of the other side of the truck once he was hit by the Taser charge with the screwdriver and a knife in his hands. Only 6 feet away from officers, he was stunned again, this time dropping. Officers were able to remove the weapons and allow paramedics to treat the man.
Vint said the man was taken to a hospital, but police officials were not clear on what charges, if any, the man may face.
Jeff Wilson, who works with Williams at he gyro stand, couldn’t believe what happened.
“Is it PCP? Is that what it was? It took a lot to bring him down,” he said to an officer. “Never seen anything like it. Not even on the news.”
“Little Rock,” the officer said, shrugging.
Arkansas, Pages 13 on 05/24/2013