Jury indicts central Arkansas man in post office shooting

Stephen Potts
Stephen Potts

A Conway man accused of firing a gun five or six times inside the city's main post office Saturday, missing a supervisor's shoulder by inches, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Little Rock.

Issued Tuesday and announced Wednesday, the indictment charges Stephen Gregory Potts, 46, with one count each of assaulting a U.S. Postal Service employee, using a firearm during a crime of violence and possessing a firearm in a federal facility.

According to a criminal complaint that was filed Monday, allowing Potts to be detained by federal authorities until a grand jury could consider the allegations against him, Potts walked into Conway's main post office at about noon Saturday as four employees were finishing their duties in preparation for closing for the weekend.

Witnesses said the unknown man at first appeared to be filling out a mailing label, but then tried to follow a window clerk through a door to get to the post office workroom. The woman was returning to the workroom floor after coming out from behind the counter and through the door to lock up retail merchandise in the lobby.

The employee said that when Potts couldn't get through the door, he told the employee he had the wrong door.

According to a news release from U.S. Attorney Cody Hiland, Potts also tried to follow a second employee through the door.

The release said that when told he couldn't go through the door, Potts pulled a black .380-caliber pistol out of his pocket and climbed over the counter. A male supervisor who was on the workroom floor then stepped between Potts and the two women and asked Potts if he could help him, while the two women went into a bathroom and called 9-1-1.

Conway police said a gunman fired shots at a post office Saturday, Sept. 29, 2018.
Conway police said a gunman fired shots at a post office Saturday, Sept. 29, 2018.

The supervisor reported that Potts racked the slide of the gun and fired one shot, then picked up some mail and lighted it on fire. The man said Potts fired six shots, pacing back and forth between firing each shot, and that one of the bullets went over the supervisor's shoulder, missing it by about six inches.

Potts told the supervisor he wasn't going to hurt him and wasn't going to commit suicide by cop, according to the complaint. It said Potts repeatedly told the supervisor he just needed help, and that he was "doing what he needed to do so he could get help."

When Potts walked behind some equipment, the supervisor ran out of the building, he told police.

Eventually, Conway police officers arrived and took Potts into custody, according to Hiland's news release.

A postal inspector's affidavit in support of the criminal complaint notes that after being arrested, Potts told one officer that he wanted to be prosecuted in federal court. The postal inspector said Potts then told him that he works as a data analyst and was about to get fired, though he refused to say more and asked for an attorney when asked if he meant he was going to get fired before the shooting.

The federal agent noted that when he arrived, he saw Potts sitting on the floor of the facility, in custody. He noted that there was smoke in the air and that a fire extinguisher that had been discharged sat on the floor near burned mail and a lighter. The black semiautomatic pistol was found in a mail cart, and several bullet fragments were found on the floor of the facility's workroom, the postal inspector noted.

If convicted of assaulting a postal employee, Potts faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. The firearm charge carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison, to be served consecutively to the sentence on the underlying charge. Having a gun in a federal facility is punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

Metro on 10/04/2018

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