The woman whose flippant phone call prompted a three-hour standoff with Little Rock police lost her appeal of a conviction for filing a false police report Wednesday.
Jalibra Ingram, who called Little Rock officers on Jan. 3, 2012, to say that her roommate was waving a gun at her but who later changed her story, argued that there wasn't enough evidence to support her felony conviction, nor was there enough evidence to show that the false alarm cost the city more than $500.
The Arkansas Court of Appeals unanimously disagreed, upholding her conviction and sentence. She got three years of probation and was ordered to pay $1,470 in court costs and nearly $4,000 to the city for wasting its resources.
On the morning of the crime, Ingram called the police and said her roommate, Ron Mitchell, had taken her car keys and had been violent and was pointing a weapon at her.
While officers were en route, she called 911 again and told them she wanted to cancel the call and that Mitchell had given her back the keys.
The first officer at the 2620 S. Izard St. home went to Ingram's door, and no one answered. He heard movement inside, and eventually Ingram appeared but refused to step outside and then shut and locked the door.
The officer, having heard a man's voice inside, called for backup, and the department's SWAT team ringed the property. Ingram was the first to step out of the house. Mitchell didn't emerge until officers pumped about half a dozen cans of tear gas into the home, which cost the city about $260, according to court records.
During an interview with detectives, Ingram said she hadn't been threatened with a gun and had only summoned police because she was "real pissed off."
Ingram argued that she didn't give a false statement. While conceding that she had given inconsistent stories, she said prosecutors had failed to prove which story was true and which was false.
But appeals court judges said that argument was not made at her initial trial and was thus outside the scope of her appeal.
Ingram also tried to argue that the charge she reported over the phone, aggravated assault, is a Class D felony and that filing a false police report doesn't meet the felony threshold if it's reporting a crime below a Class B felony that costs less than $500 to investigate.
The judges ignored the argument over whether her reported crime was a Class D or Class B felony but found the event did cost law enforcement more than $500.
A section on 12/18/2014