A Little Rock man reportedly involved in at least two shooting incidents this year was charged in federal court with possession of a machine gun after an arrest by Bryant police looking for a vehicle believed to be connected to double homicides Sunday night.
Davyon Lashun Roberts, 18, was arrested Monday after Bryant police spotted the vehicle, a blue Ford Crown Victoria, parked in the driveway of a home on Amalie Drive in Bryant and conducted a traffic stop when the vehicle left the residence.
According to a probable cause affidavit, while police searched Roberts -- who was driving the car -- a Glock conversion device used to convert a Glock pistol into a mini-machine gun fell out of his pants.
The affidavit said Roberts was pulled over as he was driving the Crown Victoria that Little Rock police detectives had identified as a suspect vehicle after two men were found shot to death just before midnight Sunday night inside a stolen vehicle parked near the entrance of Baptist Health Medical Center. Little Rock police have identified the two men as 19-year-old Kenneth West and 20-year-old Justice Moore, both of Little Rock.
A Little Rock police spokesman said Roberts is considered a "person of interest" in the homicides.
On Tuesday, after investigators obtained a search warrant for Roberts' vehicle, a Glock Model 23 .40-caliber pistol with the rear plate missing was found underneath the driver's seat. The affidavit said Roberts had told police where to find the pistol and had said he purchased the conversion device -- known as a "Glock switch -- for about $100 in bitcoin off the internet.
The pistol, Roberts told police, was purchased at a gun show in North Little Rock several months ago and the rear plate was missing because he had tried to install the Glock switch, according to reports.
Roberts appeared via video from the Pulaski County jail Thursday morning before U.S. Magistrate Judge Edie Ervin, who appointed Latrece Gray with the Federal Public Defenders Office in Little Rock to represent him.
According to court records from Pulaski County Circuit Court, Roberts is charged in two shooting incidents that happened earlier this year.
On July 25, Roberts was arrested along with Alvictor Denton, 36, of Little Rock, after an altercation at Lark Place during which witnesses told police that two men fired multiple rounds at one another, resulting in damage to a vehicle and a residence but no injuries.
Both men were charged with five counts each of committing a terroristic act. Roberts was released from custody on $25,000 bond. Denton was released on $7,500 bond. Court records showed that Tuesday, citing Roberts' arrest on machine gun possession charge, the Pulaski County prosecuting attorney's office filed a motion to revoke his bond in that case.
Roberts has also been charged in a shooting Feb. 28 that left a 17-year-old girl with a gunshot wound in her leg.
Police initially responded at 6:48 p.m. that day to a shooting call in the 14000 block of Otter Creek Parkway, in the Otter Creek neighborhood about 2 miles west of the Interstate 30/Interstate 430 interchange.
First responders at the scene placed a tourniquet on the girl's leg before she was taken to Arkansas Children's Hospital, according to a police report.
Video surveillance showed multiple men shooting firearms before fleeing the area. An occupied residence and a vehicle in the area were both struck, the February report said.
In that incident, witnesses told investigators that they had gathered to watch the girl and other girls fight another group of girls over an ongoing "social media dispute" that included an Instagram Live broadcast earlier in the day.
The girl, who was not identified in court records, said she saw a group of boys run toward her and then start shooting.
Police obtained surveillance video of the shooting that showed six armed subjects, three of them carrying AR-15s, who hid behind the clubhouse bathroom until the girls started fighting in the parking lot. The group could be seen approaching the fight, then firing their weapons into the crowd and up in the air as crowd members ran away.
In addition to Roberts, five other teens were charged in the incident. According to an August news story, Yamahn Toney, 19, of Little Rock was charged with first-degree battery after police accused him of being the one who shot the girl. The other five, including Roberts, were charged with aggravated assault.
One of those charged, Keaton Jamal McGee, 17, of Alexander, has also been charged with capital murder in the April shooting death of Deante Deshawn Smith, 22, of Forrest City at a carnival near the Bass Pro Shops in the parking lot of The Outlets of Little Rock.
On Oct. 7, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson approved a motion to transfer Roberts' case in the Feb. 28 Otter Creek shooting incident to juvenile court.
After advising Roberts of the charge against him and his right to remain silent, Ervin appointed Gray to represent him after Gray advised her of his financial status.
"He's essentially unemployed," Gray said. "He's a high school student."
"Is there any reason for us to take up the issue of bond in this matter?" Ervin asked. "I understand that he has a state hold on him."
"I wasn't aware of that," Gray said. "Can the court advise us what the state hold is for?"
"I have no idea, I was just told that there was one," Ervin said, then told Roberts that she would set a date for a bond hearing at a later time.
"I won't have a hearing until you clear up whatever is going on with the state," she told him. "Assuming you get that resolved I can have a hearing next week to determine if you can be released on bond in this case."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Gordon said the government would oppose bail for Roberts.
Information for this article was contributed by John Lynch with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.