Killer sought after woman found fatally shot behind abandoned house in Little Rock

‘Not normal,’ Little Rock official says as year’s slayings hit 23

A Little Rock police detective interviews a woman Monday at the scene of a homicide at West 25th and South Arch streets.
A Little Rock police detective interviews a woman Monday at the scene of a homicide at West 25th and South Arch streets.

Detectives were investigating Monday after a shooting victim was found dead behind an abandoned house in Little Rock, according to police.

Officers were called to 2510 S. Arch Street at 8:02 a.m. Monday for a report of a person down, according to a statement from Little Rock police.

When police arrived, they found a woman, who had been shot, lying in the grass behind the residence, the statement said. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

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Photos by Emma Pettit and Brandon Riddle

Lt. Steve McClanahan, a Police Department spokesman, said the woman had been dead for several hours, noting that the exact time of her death would be determined by the state Crime Laboratory.

Authorities later identified the victim as 52-year-old Tamela Jones. Police listed her address as 2919 S. Arch St., less than a half mile from where police found her body Monday morning.

One man told police he heard arguing followed by gunfire sometime after midnight Monday, but did not see anything, according to the statement.

A clerk at Quick Stop convenience store on the corner of Arch and West 25th streets said he called 911 about 8 a.m. A woman ran in screaming and told him a woman was dead outside a home a couple houses from the store, the clerk said.

The statement said authorities did not have any information on a shooter and the motive for the homicide was unclear. The investigation is on-going, it said.

On Monday afternoon, Jones' family gathered outside of the abandoned house on South Arch Street. A fire on the porch of the house Monday afternoon had left charred debris scattered on the porch.

Jones' family and community leaders had gathered to ask for the public's help in identifying the shooter.

"I know somebody around here [knows] what happened," said Jones' cousin, Susan Gay-Jackson.

Gay-Jackson said she passes the abandoned house regularly and sees people hanging out near the structure.

"For some reason, this morning when I passed by on my way to work, it was quiet up here," she said.

The quiet scene surprised her, she said. She later received a call about her cousin.

She said Jones was a kind person who had cancer and was in remission.

"She always had a way of making me laugh, saying funny things," Gay-Jackson said, adding she saw Jones the day before the shooting.

"She didn't deserve that," she said.

Little Rock police Sgt. Willie Davis attended the gathering and said he went to middle school with Jones.

Jones was a mother of four and was well known in the community, Davis said. One of her sons participated in the O.K. program., a Little Rock Police Department mentoring program run by Davis.

Davis said he found out about Jones' death that morning, and had some people calling to find out if the news of her death was true.

"My phone was ringing off the hook," he said.

Davis described Jones as smart and articulate, and said she was never afraid of telling the truth.

At the crime scene, Little Rock City Director Ken Richardson said the violence should not be tolerated.

"In certain parts of our community, we accept this as normal behavior. This is not normal," he said.

Abandoned and boarded up houses can become magnets for criminal activity, he said, and the city must do a better job of addressing the disproportionate number of those homes south of Interstate 630.

"We have too many of them boarded up and vacant in certain parts of our community," Richardson said.

In Little Rock, homicides and shootings are up so far this year.

Officials have said an uptick in violent crime that began toward the end of last year has continued into 2017.

Jones' death is the 22nd homicide in Little Rock so far this year, a jump from the 10 homicides the city recorded in that same time period last year. [The city's 23rd homicide occurred later Monday night. Click here for details on that killing.]

The Police Department reported that 71 people were hurt by gunfire in Little Rock from Jan. 1 to April 27. In that same time period last year, there were 32 people injured by gunfire, according to police data.

Violent crime overall is also up so far this year. Preliminary police data show a 21 percent increase in overall violent crime from Jan. 1 to May 1 compared to the same time period last year.

Information for this article was contributed by Emma Pettit of Arkansas Online.

Metro on 05/09/2017

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Little Rock police detectives gather at the scene of a homicide in the 2500 block of South Arch Street in south Little Rock on Monday.

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