PINE BLUFF — An 18-year-old Pine Bluff man was found shot to death after an accident at a Pine Bluff motel early Friday, police say.
Jefferson County Coroner Chad Kelley said Devante Robinson was pronounced dead at 4:01 a.m. at the America’s Best Inn at 2700 E. Harding Ave.
Authorities found Robinson lying in a breezeway of a building on the north side of the motel at 3:38 a.m. and a blood trail leading upstairs to Room 222, according to a news release from the Pine Bluff Police Department.
Lt. Terry Hopson of the Pine Bluff Police Department’s detective division described the shooting as a “legitimate accident” involving one of Robinson’s friends, whosename was not released by police because he hasn’t been charged with a crime.
“The file will be put together for the prosecutor to review, but the prosecutor was in line with the fact it was an accident,” Hopson said.
After being shot in the chest in Room 222, Robinson went on foot down the stairs to where he collapsed, the news release said.
Robinson’s body was sent to the state Crime Laboratory in Little Rock for an autopsy.
A small-caliber semiautomatic handgun believed to have been used in the shooting was discovered in the motel’s parking lot, the news release said.
Witnesses told authorities that the victim and the gunman were friends and had been together all day. There had been no problems or disagreements throughout the day between the two, the news release said.
Until additional supporting evidence is found to change the course of the investigation, the shooting will be documented as accidental, the news release said.
Arkansas, Pages 18 on 07/31/2010