The murder trial of a Little Rock man accused of shooting his brother in front of his own daughter has been set for September after a diagnosis by state doctors that Alonzo Lamont Pride is fit to stand trial.
At a hearing Feb. 12, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson scheduled Pride's trial after a mental evaluation showed he has no mental illness. The proceedings against Pride, who is in prison on a parole violation, have been on hold for the past eight months while state doctors conducted the exam at the request of Pride's attorney.
Pride, 37, was arrested in April just a few minutes after Little Rock police responded to a report of a shooting and found Kendrick Antione Gardner, 38, dead inside his Bruno Road home. Gardner had been shot several times, and Pride's daughter told investigators that her father had shot him with an AK-47, according to police reports.
Officers found the rifle in the backyard of the home and took Pride into custody after he was found walking along a street a short distance from the residence. Police also found him to be carrying the hallucinogen PCP, also known as angel dust, the reports show.
Pride told police that Gardner had "raped" his 17-year-old daughter but refused to further elaborate or answer any questions, court filings show. Police reports don't show whether Pride, a divorced father of four, was talking about the girl who witnessed the shooting or another child.
In May 1995, Gardner was a 16-year-old newspaper carrier with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, working with a younger brother, Quincy, when he was shot in the face during a 4 a.m. holdup at East Wakefield and Winchester streets. The brothers were in their van rolling newspapers when they were accosted by three robbers in ski masks, according to police reports.
One of the robbers shot Gardner with a long-barrel shotgun when the brothers said they did not have any money. Gardner was disfigured by the shooting and suffered a crippling injury to his hands, which he had used to shield his face.
About 20 minutes later, three masked men, one of whom fired a shotgun, tried to ambush a man in the parking lot of Stone Container Corp., 6101 Patterson Road, about a quarter-mile away from where Gardner was shot. The man was able to drive away from the attackers.
Little Rock police arrested three teenagers, Homero Cerda Jr., then 16, Dontae Jones, also 16, and Earl Edward Porter, who was 14. Detectives said the robbers' target was the van Gardner was driving because they wanted to use it to crash through the front of a gun store to steal weapons. The shotgun used had been taken in a burglary, court records show.
Cerda was identified by police as the gunman who shot Gardner on Porter's orders. The three were sentenced to prison after reaching plea agreements with prosecutors.
Cerda was sentenced to 37 years for first-degree battery and two counts of aggravated robbery. Porter received a 33-year sentence on those same charges.
Jones, who provided the gun, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for two counts of aggravated robbery and a criminal-mischief charge for shooting out a truck windshield at Stone Container Corp., court records show.
Police reports show the Gardner brothers had an older brother, Broaderick Eugene Gardner, who was fatally shot the night before Thanksgiving 1999, on Granite Mountain Circle in Little Rock, according to police reports. No one was ever charged in the killing.
At the time, detectives were investigating a complaint that Broaderick Gardner, 23, had shot a woman about three weeks earlier -- either because they had argued or she had tried to rob him. Police also had reports that her husband and Broaderick Gardner had been feuding.
The fatal shooting was the third time Broaderick Gardner had been shot since April 1995.
Court records show that Pride, whom police say uses the nickname Lil Dirty, has either been in jail or on parole or probation since February 2012, when he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor theft charge that had been reduced from a felony for his role in a pair of March 2011, car break-ins near Eighth and Spring streets. He was sentenced to a year on probation.
Two weeks after sentencing in the theft case, Pride was arrested in Little Rock for possession of PCP, driving while intoxicated and careless driving, probation violations that led to his probation being extended for five more years.
After his third probation violation for failing to complete a drug-treatment program and testing positive for PCP three times, Pride's probation was extended again in January 2013, this time by nine months, with the added requirement that he immediately check into a residential treatment facility as soon as he was released from jail. Court records show he completed the 30-day program.
In September 2013, he was arrested for a car break-in for which he pleaded guilty to felony breaking or entering and received his first prison sentence, a five-year term with an additional seven-year suspended sentence.
He was next arrested in June 2015 at Dillard's in Park Plaza after he fought with an off-duty police officer who had caught him stealing shirts, court records show.
Pride pleaded guilty in February 2016 to robbery, six counts of theft by receiving and misdemeanor battery and resisting arrest in exchange for his second penitentiary sentence, another five years in prison that would be followed by a four-year suspended sentence.
Eight months later, he was arrested again -- twice in North Little Rock. Court records show that he was arrested first at 11:35 p.m. on Oct. 21, 2016, on West 22nd Street after a traffic stop for having no headlight on his moped. Officers found PCP in his pants during a search.
Four days later, he was arrested on Pike Avenue after an officer saw him driving recklessly on a moped.
Questioned about whether he had any contraband, Pride surrendered PCP he had wrapped in foil in his jacket pocket, according to the arrest report. He was charged with two counts of felony drug possession, and court records show his parole later was revoked.
His next arrest was in April 2017 when Gardner was killed.
Court records show Pride's first of 10 felony convictions came in June 2006 for commercial burglary. He was 23 in April 2006 when Little Rock police, responding to a burglar alarm at a business at 521 Byrd St., caught him running away from the building, which had a broken window and an open door, court records show. Surveillance video showed Pride breaking into and then exiting the building.
He pleaded guilty to the charge in exchange for three years of probation, which he appears to have completed with no problem.
Metro on 02/25/2018