Injured man who tried to enter Air Force base dies

Reports of drug use, claims of spying date from 2006

The vehicle driven by Larry Dean McElroy Jr. when he tried to breach a gate Monday at Little Rock Air Force Base sits in the driveway Tuesday where McElroy lived at 4120 West Maddox Road in Jacksonville, less than a mile north of the base.
The vehicle driven by Larry Dean McElroy Jr. when he tried to breach a gate Monday at Little Rock Air Force Base sits in the driveway Tuesday where McElroy lived at 4120 West Maddox Road in Jacksonville, less than a mile north of the base.

The rifle-toting man shot by security personnel as he tried to breach a gate at Little Rock Air Force Base on Monday had a history of paranoia and believed that base officials were spying on him, according to Pulaski County sheriff's office reports.

photo

Special to the Democrat-Gazette

Larry Dean McElroy Jr.

photo

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Information about Larry McElroy Jr.

ADVERTISEMENT

More headlines

On Tuesday, the FBI identified the man as Larry Dean McElroy Jr., 43, of northern Pulaski County, who investigators believe acted alone in attempting to gain access to the base. FBI agents say they have yet to determine what motivated McElroy, and they have found no "ties to terrorism."

Federal authorities, Jacksonville police and military investigators arrived at the base about 9:15 a.m. Monday after they say McElroy drove a Ford Expedition to the main entrance on Vandenberg Boulevard and got out of the vehicle holding a rifle. Two guards shot at McElroy and struck him an unknown number of times, officials say.

McElroy remained in critical condition Tuesday at UAMS Medical Center in Little Rock.

Sheriff's office reports obtained by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette show that McElroy, who lives less than a mile north of the base, at 4120 W. Maddox Road, had accused military personnel of planting surveillance devices in his home and holding him captive.

The reports date back to 2006 and indicate that McElroy was known to use hallucinogenic substances.

In an interview Tuesday, Deb Green, spokesman for the FBI's Little Rock field office, said agents are aware of past complaints McElroy had made about the Air Force.

"It's unclear if he did have any preplanning. However, he had made numerous complaints to the Air Force base. ... He was very well-known to them. He made numerous rants and has done this for a long time," she said.

Deputies most recently responded to McElroy's home shortly before midnight on Jan. 22. McElroy said he had recently purchased a listening-device locator and had scanned his television, stereo and chandelier with it.

McElroy told deputies that the device turned up three "spy devices," and he believed "General N.B. Forrest and Colonel Sanders from the Little Rock Air Force base" had planted them in his residence, a report states.

"Mr. McElroy was advised the likelihood of this being factual was pretty slim, however he demanded the events be documented for his safety," Deputy Dennis Akins wrote in the report.

Other reports show similar paranoia.

On the afternoon of March 31, 2014, deputies were called to McElory's home, and he told them "he was afraid for his safety and that people were watching him," according to a report. McElroy's wife, Misty Chambers, 34, told the sheriff's office that day that she would drive him to a hospital.

Two months before, on Jan. 25, 2014, deputies went to the home after McElroy called his father and said 25 uniformed men with weapons had held him and Chambers captive for 10 hours. McElroy and Chambers "began to point out individuals who were standing next to us," the deputies wrote, but no one was there.

"It was obvious he was hallucinating," Deputy Sean O'Nale wrote.

McElroy's father, Larry McElroy Sr., told deputies that his son had been using drugs and it wasn't the first time his son had "fits of hallucinations," according to the report.

On Tuesday, base officials would not comment on the younger McElroy's complaints about the Air Force.

Base spokesman Lt. Amanda Farr said the base had returned to its normal security measures. The two security airmen involved in Monday's shooting received counseling from an on-base agency and were back at their posts, she said.

Chambers, reached by phone Tuesday, declined to discuss her husband's history or the shooting at Little Rock Air Force Base.

"I don't really know anything right now. I don't know. I'm trying to deal with my husband right now, so I don't have any comment right now," she said.

The FBI, with the assistance of the sheriff's office and the Little Rock Fire Department bomb squad, searched the couple's home in the hours after Monday's shooting. Base personnel, wearing explosive-resistant body armor, also searched McElroy's sport utility vehicle, using remote-controlled bomb disposal robots.

No explosives were found at either location.

As of Tuesday evening, no formal charges or criminal complaints had been filed against McElroy in either state or federal court.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Givens, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Chris Thyer, said he couldn't comment on the air base shooting because it is an ongoing investigation.

In the federal system, formal charges are brought by grand jury indictments, but federal prosecutors can detain a person, under a filing known as a criminal complaint. The complaint lays out the probable cause that a crime has been committed.

A federal magistrate reviews the complaint and decides whether to issue an arrest warrant. Once the warrant is issued, federal prosecutors have 30 days to secure a grand jury indictment.

Pulaski County jail records show that McElroy, who neighbors said is unemployed, has been jailed on seven occasions since 1995. Charges range from failure to appear and criminal mischief to driving while intoxicated and first-degree battery. His only convictions are traffic-related.

Deputies have responded to four domestic disturbances at the McElroy-Chambers residence since the couple bought the home in 2004, according to reports. Two of the altercations were physical.

McElroy purportedly choked Chambers and struck her hand with a hammer in 2007. And last year, deputies were called to the home, and an injured McElroy refused to cooperate because "he did not want Chambers to get into any trouble."

It was a side of the couple that their next-door neighbor, Kathy Wolf, 72, said she never saw. Wolf said she once asked McElroy if she could cut back the brush on their property line, and he said it would be no trouble.

"They were very nice," she said, speaking after authorities had searched McElroy's home Monday.

"They weren't very talkative except to say, 'Hi,' when we got the mail and stuff like that."

Information for this article was contributed by Nikki Wentling and Noel Oman of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Metro on 06/17/2015

READ MORE

Upcoming Events