LITTLE ROCK -- In a series of events involving multiple law enforcement agencies Monday, the brother of the Little Rock mayor left a hospital where he had been transported after a traffic crash, stole a pickup with two young children inside and drove them 14 miles to a mall, according to police accounts released Tuesday.
At one point he told the children's aunt over the phone, "Don't worry, I'm the mayor's brother," reports said.
Police eventually found the vehicle, parked with the children still inside, and arrested Darrell Lamont Scott, 31, on felony charges of kidnapping and theft.
The younger brother of Mayor Frank Scott Jr. was apprehended by North Little Rock police around 6:45 p.m. Monday at McCain Mall, 3929 McCain Blvd., in North Little Rock, according to a copy of an arrest report from the Little Rock Police Department.
Darrell Scott pleaded innocent to two counts of Class-B felony kidnapping and one count of felony theft of property during an initial court appearance Tuesday. The judge issued a six-month no-contact order between Scott and the children, plus another individual.
He was being held in the Pulaski County jail as of Tuesday evening with bail set at $100,000, according to an online inmate roster.
Darrell Scott also faces Arkansas State Police charges related to the crash that took place before the reported kidnapping Monday, court records show. Charges included obstructing governmental operations, driving while intoxicated, and careless and prohibited driving.
According to state police spokesman Bill Sadler, Darrell Scott was involved in a single-vehicle crash near East Dixon Road around 4:30 p.m., which resulted in him being transported by ambulance to Baptist Health medical center in Little Rock.
When a trooper arrived at Baptist Health, he was informed that Darrell Scott had fled the hospital, Sadler said.
In a statement late Monday night after media outlets had begun reporting his brother's arrest, Frank Scott Jr. said his family is seeking medical and professional help for Darrell Scott as he manages "an extremely difficult season."
Court records show Darrell Scott's parents have attempted to have their son involuntarily committed for psychiatric evaluation and treatment twice within the past two months.
"My heart goes out to the children who were involved," Frank Scott said.
The mayor requested privacy for his family.
Details on the arrest were limited Monday evening, but by Tuesday morning law enforcement officials had begun to release incident reports documenting Darrell Scott's arrest.
An incident report from the Little Rock Police Department says police received a call from a 23-year-old woman at Baptist Health, 9601 Baptist Health Drive in Little Rock, informing them of a vehicle theft.
The woman told police that she had briefly gone inside to use the restroom and left her pickup with two children, ages 10 and 4, inside. Then she received a call from one of the children telling her that an individual -- later identified by police as Darrell Scott -- had taken the pickup, reports said.
According to Little Rock police spokesman Lt. Casey Clark, the woman who called police was the children's aunt.
At one point, Darrell Scott told the woman over the phone, "Don't worry, I'm the mayor's brother," apparently while driving away from the hospital with the children, according to the incident report.
The aunt later received a text message from one of the children saying they were at McCain Mall in North Little Rock, reports said.
When North Little Rock police arrived at the mall, they found the pickup parked with the children inside. Officers arrested Darrell Scott inside the mall, according to the incident report.
The mall is about 14 miles from the hospital where the pickup theft was reported.
Additionally, the incident report says that once Darrell Scott arrived Monday at the Pulaski County jail, he reported that he had been sexually assaulted while in the custody of North Little Rock police officers. At that point he was transported to UAMS Medical Center for observation, the report said.
A rape test kit was completed and collected by North Little Rock police, according to the incident report. Darrell Scott was then booked into the Pulaski County jail.
Officer Joseph Green, a spokesman for the North Little Rock Police Department, said Darrell Scott's sexual assault claim was made to the Little Rock Police Department, which referred the allegation to the North Little Rock Police Department.
"We are currently investigating the allegation as we speak," Green wrote in an email Tuesday afternoon.
Detectives will interview Darrell Scott, as well as the officers involved in his detention, and will review any available video footage, Green said.
Court records in Pulaski County show that Darrell Scott's parents attempted to have him involuntarily committed for mental health evaluation and treatment this year, first in May and again in late June.
Derrick and Brenda Scott cited their son's recent erratic and aggressive behavior, along with past diagnoses of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
In their May petition, his parents said Darrell Scott was no longer taking his medication. One month earlier, he had been living in a psychiatric hospital in Washington, D.C., they said. They also said Darrell Scott had racked up $25,000 in bills by renting four different rooms while he was living in Texas.
In their followup petition, his parents said Darrell Scott was living without shelter in Little Rock, explaining that he was "moving back and forth from our home to the streets."
Their first petition was dismissed May 27 after Darrell Scott was voluntarily admitted to Baptist Health, records show, but his parents filed another petition one month later, claiming he had not "done anything that he was ordered to do since the last order" May 20, which approved an evaluation of his mental health.
The second petition was dismissed last week because Darrell Scott had not been served with notice related to the matter, according to a judge.
Information for this article was contributed by John Lynch of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.