Trial set for North Little Rock man in firefighter's shooting

Mark Pruitt
Mark Pruitt

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Barry Sims set April 11 for the manslaughter trial of a 48-year-old North Little Rock man accused of killing a volunteer firefighter who was coming to his rescue.

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Mark Eugene Pruitt faces up to 10 years in prison over accusations that he shot and killed Ronald Jason Adams in January after the 29-year-old Adams, responding to an emergency call for a man having a seizure, entered Pruitt's Dortch Loop home.

Adams was a neighbor who was dispatched to the Pruitt home because he was the closest emergency medical technician available. Aside from his volunteer duties with the East Pulaski Volunteer Fire Department, Adams was a lieutenant for the Sherwood Fire Department.

The judge also ruled that Pruitt is competent to stand trial after a mental evaluation by state doctors found that the self-employed car dealer is not mentally ill. The evaluation postponed the trial, originally set for Nov. 28.

In an interview with his examiners at the State Hospital, Pruitt said he had accidentally shot Adams. He said he remembers waking up to see a man walking down the hallway toward his bedroom.

"I thought he was an intruder. He wasn't wearing anything fluorescent and it was dark," Pruitt is quoted as saying. "I blacked out, and the next thing I remember is the flash of the gun going off."

He said he doesn't remember firing the weapon, just the flash from the muzzle, then his wife telling him he had shot a firefighter. Pruitt told the doctor he remembers trying to stand up, but he could barely walk. Then he tripped over something and fell.

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Pruitt's lawyers did not contest the doctors' diagnosis that Pruitt had cocaine-use disorder, which went into remission once he was jailed, and post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition he developed after the firefighter was killed.

Pruitt told doctors in November that he had resumed using cocaine four to five months before the slaying after quitting almost 20 years ago.

The report also notes that Pruitt told doctors in September that he had resumed using cocaine more than three years ago, describing his usage as 1 gram a day.

Blood tests done when he was arrested on the manslaughter charge also contradicted his statement that he had not used cocaine in two days, according to the report.

The drug can't be detected in the blood more than six hours after it's been ingested, but a "high level" was found in a toxicology test, the report states. Cocaine residue on a piece of cellophane was found in his kitchen on the day of the slaying.

The 12-page report presented to the judge also contains Pruitt's wife's account of what happened the day Adams was killed.

She and her husband had been in bed when his body suddenly went rigid and he began shaking, she told emergency room doctors.

In an interview for the mental evaluation, Tonja Jo Pruitt said her husband began making an odd gurgling sound that caused her to think he was having a nightmare. But he didn't respond when she shook and hit him to try to wake him up.

His eyes were half-open and glazed, but he was unresponsive and bleeding from his mouth.

Fearing her husband was going to die, she called 911 and was told to turn him on his side while dispatchers sent help. She said he tried to get up but fell over. She had to help him get back in bed, she said.

He was struggling to catch his breath, she told the doctors, saying that she had gone into the garage to open it to make it easier for paramedics to get into the house. She said emergency medical personnel had gone into their bedroom when she heard a "boom, boom" and realized the first responder had been shot by her husband.

"His [Pruitt's] eyes were scared," she told doctors. "He thought someone was breaking into [the] house."

Mark Pruitt has changed since the slaying, becoming more withdrawn and working less, she said in the mental-evaluation interview.

She has moved the bedroom furniture around at least twice because Pruitt complains of recurring memories about "seeing the guy lying on the floor," the report said. He also can vividly recall her trying to resuscitate Adams while the firefighter was bleeding from his mouth, the report said.

Pruitt has told her that he wishes he had died or that she had not tried to rouse him out of the seizure, she said.

Pruitt's wife told doctors that she did not know he was using cocaine until last fall. She said he went to a drug-treatment program in California for at least three weeks in October 2015, but she did not know he had resumed using the drug, according to the report.

He checked into The Bridgeway hospital for treatment a week after the firefighter was killed, reporting symptoms of depression, anxiety and "extreme guilt," the report states. He participated in an outpatient program for about two weeks before discontinuing treatment.

Defense attorneys Hubert and Christian Alexander had asked for Pruitt to be examined at the State Hospital in October.

The father and son lawyers told the judge then that they were concerned because Pruitt had twice called sheriff's deputies within a 15-hour span to come to his home. Pruitt said strangers had been in his home and elsewhere on the property.

He was committed to the State Hospital by deputies after the second call. They described him as being in a "dangerous" mental state.

Pruitt pointed to his neighbor's property and said the strangers were hiding there, but deputies found no evidence of any intruders or trespassers.

Metro on 12/03/2016

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