Little Rock police fatally shot a man in a downtown alleyway early Sunday after the man reportedly pulled a pistol on officers, according to the department.
Little Rock officers in the 300 block of President Clinton Avenue in the River Market District were approached at 2:06 a.m. by a man who reported that another man had pointed a gun at him, according to a statement from the Little Rock Police Department.
The witness pointed out a man standing in the middle of President Clinton Avenue as the person who had pointed the firearm at him, according to the release. Officers tried to make contact with the man, who fled on foot toward Cumberland Street, the release said.
The man took a left turn and headed south on Cumberland Street, and the officers chased him to the alleyway behind downtown bar Ernie Biggs, police said.
Officers were chasing the man in the alley when he stopped and turned toward the officers with a pistol in his hand, "raising it as if to fire at the officers," according to the statement.
Multiple officers fired at the man, the release said.
The man fell to the ground and had multiple gunshot wounds, according to the release.
Emergency medical personnel took the man to UAMS Medical Center, where he was taken into surgery, police said. He later died from the injuries.
The man's next of kin was notified of the death, but police declined to identify the man Sunday.
Police said the officers involved in the shooting were placed on administrative leave per department policy. The department did not identify the officers Sunday, and a spokesman declined to release the number of officers who were placed on administrative leave.
There is an ongoing investigation into the fatal shooting.
Photos and video taken by a witness immediately after the shooting show a bloodied man lying on his back in the alley with his hands on his upper chest. A bicycle officer, helmet on, is standing over the man on his right side. Another officer is doubled over, hands on his knees, to the man's left.
A man wearing an Ernie Biggs shirt is standing nearby.
A video shows the bicycle officer yelling to someone off screen, asking for help.
"Give me towels! Give me towels! As many towels as you can get," he says.
Someone can then be heard repeating the officer's request, yelling: "More towels! More towels!"
A photo of the scene taken after the man was transported to UAMS Medical Center shows an officer standing in the alley, arms crossed, with a black handgun at her feet. The man's bloodied shirt is on the street next to her.
A witness who recorded the images declined to be identified. He said he heard at least four shots, then heard an officer yelling at another person that he didn't want to shoot them. He said the officer also asked why that person had run toward him and pulled a gun.
Crime scene tape blocked off Cumberland Street as emergency medical personnel worked on the man in the back of an ambulance. The ambulance was parked in the alleyway, which was also closed off by crime scene tape.
According to Little Rock Police Department policy, officers are only permitted to use deadly force to "protect themselves or others from what they reasonably believe to be an immediate threat of death or serious physical injury."
"The use of Deadly Force shall be the last alternative, and the officer's responsibility to protect human life must include his own," according to department policy.
Since 2011, Little Rock police have been in 28 officer-involved shootings, including the most recent shooting early Sunday morning. A dozen of those Little Rock officer-involved shootings have been fatal.
One of those fatal officer-involved shootings occurred last month in the parking lot of the Ashley Square shopping center at North Rodney Parham Road and Reservoir Road.
Little Rock detective Angela Everett shot and killed Gregory Lamont Childress, 44, in what police called an attempted robbery. Police said Everett, who was in uniform, was working off-duty when she walked to her unmarked police vehicle with bank bags after she left a state revenue office.
Childress exited a vehicle wearing a mask and fired a weapon toward Everett, hitting the unmarked vehicle, according to a statement from the department. Everett fired back and fatally hit Childress, who died on scene, the department said.
That case is still under investigation, a department spokesman said.
Information for this article was contributed by Hunter Field and Amanda Claire Curcio of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Metro on 03/27/2017