Man gets 15 years in shooting

LITTLE ROCK — A 23-year-old parolee accused of shooting up a Little Rock house full of children in the middle of the night and wounding a woman has accepted a 15-year prison sentence.

Sentencing papers filed Monday show Reshad De-jun Smith of North Little Rock pleaded no contest to first-degree battery, felon in possession of a firearm and two counts of committing a terroristic act in exchange for the 15-year term imposed by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Herb Wright.

He faced a maximum of 120 years in prison on the four charges, each a Class B felony that carries a possible 30-year sentence for a habitual offender like Smith.

Under the conditions of Smith’s plea agreement, negotiated by deputy prosecutor Cole Lorigan and public defender Julia Jackson, four other terroristic act charges were dropped.

According to police reports and court filings, a ShotSpotter gunshot detection alert just before 3 a.m. July 8, 2019, brought Little Rock police to 4700 W 25th St., the home of Thomas and Anneisha Hollis. The couple had been married a little more than three months.

Anneisha Hollis, 29, told investigators someone had been banging on their front door and her husband went to see who it was. She said she heard a commotion followed by gunshots, one of which struck her as she tried to hide.

Her 4-year-old daughter and four nieces, ages 6 and younger, were in the house asleep when the shooting started, Hollis told police. No one else was injured.

Her husband was “visibly upset” and didn’t want to talk to Little Rock detectives, according to the report. Thomas Hollis was arrested that same night by North Little Rock police on a domestic violence charge involving a former girlfriend, 22-year-old Kenunna Johnson, court filings show.

About a week after the shooting, Thomas Hollis consented to an interview with Little Rock detectives, telling them that when he’d opened his front door that night he found Smith, who is Johnson’s brother, her sister, the sister’s boyfriend and a third man he didn’t know.

Hollis told detectives that Smith had a gun and that the group had tried to force their way inside but he managed to close the door, which is when the shooting began.

“Mr. Hollis stated that he was angry at the situation and didn’t originally speak to the police because he wanted to handle the situation himself,” the arrest report states.

Questioned by police, Johnson’s sister said Hollis had gotten into a physical fight that same night with Johnson — which led to the domestic violence charge against him — and that he had taken her sister’s car. Kayla Nicole Johnson, 24, said the group found the vehicle parked at the Hollis home but she did not know who was shooting.

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