The Little Rock man accused of threatening City Manager Bruce Moore and the Public Works Department pleaded innocent Friday and had his bail lowered to $5,000.
Luke Skrable, 57, is accused of sending Moore a threatening email hours after Skrable was escorted from a city board meeting by police Tuesday and of leaving threatening messages with Sue Halsey, the Public Works Department secretary, last week.
He is charged with second-degree terroristic threatening, a Class D felony, and two counts of making a terroristic threat, a Class A felony. He was arrested and booked into the Pulaski County jail Thursday. An initial arrest report listed his bail at $42,500.
A Pulaski County District Court judge lowered the bail amount Friday when Skrable appeared in court via video arraignment from jail. The judge also ordered Skrable to have no contact with Moore and Halsey.
According to police reports, Skrable sent a threatening email to Moore on Tuesday and left two messages with Halsey on Jan. 15. The reports indicate that those three messages led to the three felony charges.
In the first voice mail, about 9:30 a.m., Skrable said, "Somebody is going to be bleeding" and "I'm going to make toads rain down on public works," according to the police report.
In the second voice mail, left about 5 p.m, police said Skrable said, "My patience has been worn thin" and "The longer it takes to get this fixed, the worst it's going to be -- and you know how I operate, I'm going to keep escalating this."
Both voice mails were about ongoing complaints Skrable has been making about ditches not being clean in southwest Little Rock. Two days before the voice mails, Skrable attended a city board meeting to complain about the ditches during time allotted for citizen communication, and his tone became heated.
He sent lengthy emails about the ditches before and after the meeting. In the emails, he berated city officials and called them names. Skrable sends emails about various complaints almost weekly to different city officials and usually copies members of the media and the city Board of Directors.
When Skrable arrived at Tuesday's meeting to complain again about the same problem, Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola didn't allow him to speak, saying the issue didn't need to be repeated and that Skrable wouldn't specify another topic he wished to speak about.
The mayor told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Thursday after Skrable was arrested that he had approached Skrable during a break in the meeting Tuesday to clarify what topic he wanted to discuss, and Skrable said he wanted the mayor to apologize for incorrect comments.
After Stodola refused to allow Skrable to speak, Skrable talked anyway, pounded on the podium and became irate. Stodola had Skrable escorted out by police.
Hours later, at 10:36 p.m., Skrable sent an email to Moore about the altercation that said in part, "Your days are numbered" and "We are in the same weight class, are you scared, is that it?"
Skrable is set to appear in Pulaski County District Court at 9 a.m. April 6, but the case could be transferred to county circuit court before then.
Moore has declined to comment on the situation, citing the ongoing investigation.
Metro on 01/24/2015