A 40-year-old homeless man with schizophrenia beat a Little Rock bank guard unconscious Friday and took her pistol, which led to a brief standoff with police nearby when the man briefly held the gun to his head, authorities said.
Terrance Deleon Jones, who was diagnosed as mentally ill at about age 15, is charged with robbery, theft and being a felon in possession of a firearm. He was in the Pulaski County jail Saturday night.
Last month, Jones was arrested over accusations he had threatened a Little Rock store clerk with a machete.
Friday, Jones was at the Regions Bank branch at 6101 Baseline Road about 9:30 a.m. after causing a scene because he was unable to cash a check.
The guard, Glynnis Lawson-Williams, told investigators that when she asked Jones to leave he punched her in the face, then beat her to the ground, knocking her out for a few seconds. Lawson-Williams, who was taken to the hospital by ambulance for injuries in the back of her head, said her gun was gone when she regained consciousness.
Police arrived as Jones was walking away on Baseline Road, according to the report. He started running, police said, when officers tried to talk to him, and they chased Jones to 7009 Baseline Road. Police said he then pulled out the pistol and put it to his head briefly before laying the gun on the ground and surrendering.
Last month, Jones spent two days in jail before posting $7,500 bond after his Feb. 2 arrest at the Road Runner convenience store, 134000 Interstate 30. According to an arrest report, store clerk Lori Burns told police Jones threatened her with a machete after she told him to leave the property.
Jones said he would "cut her into little pieces" and struck her car with the weapon, according to an arrest report. He is now awaiting trial on charges of felony terroristic threatening and misdemeanor criminal mischief.
Jail and police records described Jones as homeless Friday. In February, Jones reported living at 10009 Bradley Drive, a rental home in Little Rock about 6 miles away from the Road Runner.
Court records describing Jones' history with mental illness begin in March 1992, when he was 14.
He was committed to the State Hospital that month based on the report of a Department of Human Services caseworker who reported he had a history of suicidal thoughts and "many" suicide attempts.
Along with mental problems, Jones was described in the commitment application as having been involved in drugs over the previous four or five years.
A doctor's report filed in the case describes Jones suffering from possible neglect and abuse and says he was suffering from hallucinations and had an explosive temper.
Three months later, Jones forced his way into his grandmother's College Station home where he robbed the 80-year-old woman of $6 at gunpoint, throwing her to the floor and beating her with the gun. He was charged with aggravated robbery, but the charges were dropped.
After two arrests in his late teens for theft by receiving, he was sentenced to seven years in prison when he was 19, after state doctors pronounced him fit to stand trial for both arrests. He was also arrested on an aggravated robbery charge when he was 18, but the charges were dropped because authorities could not find the alleged victim.
He was sentenced to an additional three years in prison in April 1998, just before he turned 21, for second-degree battery. Details of that case were not available Friday.
He was next committed in September 2003 at age 26, eight months after being released from prison, by his mother, who reported he was not taking his schizophrenia medication regularly. She said Jones was having conversations with voices only he could hear and that he'd set three Bibles on fire outside the family home in College Station. He used a stick to keep her from putting out the fire and claimed to be God, she reported.
His psychiatrist went back to court in November 2003 to get another commitment order, reporting that Jones was resisting treatment, was rough with other patients and occasionally threatened staff members. Jones also said God was telling him he was better educated than his doctors, court filings show.
"He goes into long monologues on religion, mixing Christianity and Islam," according to the commitment petition. "He says he knows the Bible and Koran by heart and can tell the world which parts are false and which are true."
In December 2007, a week before Christmas, Jones, who was homeless, was put in a psychiatric ward by Little Rock police after threatening to jump off a bridge. He was uncooperative with doctors, so they had him committed.
His next commitment was in October 2011 after he tried to grab a police officer's gun at CHI St. Vincent Behavioral Health Services. He had been taken there on a three-day hold by his doctors for hearing voices and other delusions. He was also threatening to kill people, according to a report to the court.
His next felony arrest came in January 2011 after he was seen breaking into a car on the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette parking lot. Police caught him about a block away.
He pleaded guilty to felony breaking or entering at his first circuit court appearance in exchange for a sentence of six years on probation with a $250 fine. As a condition of his probation, he was ordered to continue his psychiatric treatment and take his medications as prescribed.
Nine months later, he was arrested on a probation revocation warrant for not seeing his doctor or taking his medication. After a court-ordered mental evaluation, prosecutors agreed to withdraw the warrant after he completed six months of mental-health treatment, and he subsequently completed probation last April.
Metro on 03/04/2018