Little Rock police are investigating what appears to be the city's 81st homicide, adding to the death toll of what is already a record-breaking year for murders in the capital city.
At 2:15 p.m. Monday, Little Rock police said in a tweet that a homicide investigation was underway in the 6200 block of Colonel Glenn Road in southwest Little Rock and advised people traveling through the area to find an alternate route. Just before 3:30 p.m., at least six Little Rock police officers were on the scene canvassing the area searching for witnesses to the incident.
According to Mark Edwards, the Little Rock Police Department public information officer, little was known about the shooting Monday night as investigators continued to look for witnesses and try to piece together what happened. Edwards said police were still waiting on positive identification of the victim and no suspect information was known.
Edwards did confirm that the victim, a male, had died of an apparent gunshot wound.
Earlier Monday, Little Rock police said a Dec. 10 shooting is now being investigated as a homicide because the man who was shot died of his injuries Friday.
Little Rock police officers said they were called to Battery Street about shots fired earlier this month. They found Valandus Jackson in the driver's seat of a vehicle with a gunshot wound to his head, according to an incident report from the department.
Officers said passengers in the vehicle told them Jackson was shot when they stopped at the stop sign near 2900 Battery St. just before 11 p.m.
A news release from the Little Rock Police Department said Jackson was taken to a hospital by MEMS.
The incident report said a nearby residence was shot at as well, and a resident cut her foot on glass from broken windows there. Police said she refused medical attention.
Two children in the residence with the woman were reportedly shaken but not injured.
Officers noted several bullet holes on two other houses on Battery Street, but said they were unable to speak with those residents.
Edwards said Jackson is the city's 80th homicide this year.
Monday's killing is the third homicide this year at the troubled Big Country Chateau apartment complex, which sits just off Colonel Glenn Road near the intersection of South University Avenue and the campus of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
The complex has been the site of a number of homicides in years past as well and has been subject at times to extra police surveillance in an effort to quell the violence. It is also being sued by the state for deceptive trade practices after resident complaints and an investigation by the city.
In 2016, Big Country Chateau settled a federal lawsuit for an undisclosed sum over the 2010 shooting death of a resident by an off-duty Little Rock police officer who was working security at the complex.
The attorney general's office filed a lawsuit in August against the owners of the 57-year-old complex in response to findings that the water and electrical services they had paid for as part of their rent were at risk of being shut off.
Regulators found that the complex owed $222,932 in water bills as of August because the complex had not been paying regularly since January 2020, court filings show.
According to the lawsuit, apartment operators deliberately rented apartments knowing they could be unsafe and further accepted payment from tenants to pay for water and electrical services but failed to use the money for utilities. Court records show that Big Country was charging as much as $800 per month in rent in 2021, which was supposed to cover electric, gas, water and trash pickup.
CORRECTION: The victim's name was misspelled in a earlier version of this article.