The Lonoke County prosecutor has found that the fatal shooting of a man handcuffed in the back of a sheriff's patrol car May 19 was justified.
Prosecuting Attorney Chuck Graham wrote in a Monday letter to Lt. Stacie Rhoads of the Arkansas State Police that his office had reviewed the evidence from the state police investigation and found that "the agents and sheriff were justified in using lethal force upon Jonathan McIntosh."
McIntosh, 35, was killed after concealing a pistol and firing at officers while handcuffed in the back of the patrol car, according to a summary of the events in the letter.
"Mr. McIntosh concealed a weapon under multiple layers of clothing in his groin area so that it could not be found pursuant to a pat down search," Graham wrote. "The officers reacted quickly and decisively and had no other means of non-deadly force to diffuse the situation in which Mr. McIntosh was firing indiscriminately and acting with wanton disregard for human life."
According to the summary of events listed in the letter, Arkansas Department of Community Correction agents Jonathan Stewart and Michael Blake were looking for an absconder and a rape suspect May 19 at 905 E. Main St. in Cabot. The agents did not find who they were looking for but did find McIntosh, a parolee.
After determining that there was a warrant for McIntosh's arrest, he was taken into custody, the letter said.
When reached by phone Tuesday, Graham said he did not know what the warrant was for or what agency issued it.
The officers searched McIntosh and found bags of what appeared to be crystal methamphetamine and paraphernalia, according to the letter.
Lonoke County Sheriff John Staley was called to assist in the drug case, the sheriff said Tuesday. He said McIntosh had about an ounce of crystal methamphetamine on him and scales, leading officers to believe that he was selling drugs.
The letter said McIntosh was handcuffed with his hands behind his back and put in the back of the Lonoke County patrol car.
Stewart went to the patrol car and opened the door to talk to McIntosh. By then, McIntosh had his handcuffed hands in front of him, raised a gun and began shooting through the rear passenger glass of the patrol car toward Stewart and Blake, the letter said.
The agents took cover and, along with Staley, returned fire.
"In this case the evidence is uncontroverted that the agents and the sheriff reasonably believed that Mr. McIntosh was using deadly physical force upon them and their lives and/or citizens at the scene were in danger," Graham wrote in the letter.
Earlier speculation that the gun had been left in the car from another arrest or had been slipped to McIntosh by someone else was false, Staley said.
"We deemed the weapon had to be on his person," Staley said. "It wasn't left in the police car. We checked it before. And nobody made contact with the inmate in the car."
Missing something during a pat down is unfortunate, but it can happen, Staley said.
"It happens to police officers all over this country," he said.
Dina Tyler, the Arkansas Department of Community Correction's deputy director, said it's impossible to be 100 percent sure about how McIntosh got the gun or hid the gun because "the only person that knows is gone."
Tyler and Staley said they were grateful for the prosecutor's decision.
"We had thought it was," Tyler said of the prosecutor's ruling that the shooting was justified. "Our officers are trained very well. All indications following the incident was that it was justified."
Staley said officers had no other option but to return fire, but it's not something any of them wanted to do.
"I pray for the family of Jonathan McIntosh," Staley said. "I pray for him."
Metro on 06/03/2015