JACKSONVILLE, Ark. – Arkansas State Police are investigating a Sunday night shooting at a Waffle House that involved a Jacksonville police officer.
Authorities said officers with the Jacksonville Police Department responded to 116 Marshall Road shortly after 11:40 p.m. After they arrived, officers said the suspect ran from the restaurant into the woods while firing toward officers.
According to police, one JPD officer also fired his weapon striking the suspect with a non-life-threatening injury, sending the man to the hospital. ASP officials said no one else was injured.
By Monday morning, the shattered glass was gone and the front door was already replaced at the Waffle House in Jacksonville. Many people grabbing a bite said they didn’t even know hours prior the employees were being threatened with a gun.
Diamonds Thomas and her children live next door at the Willowbend Apartments, just on the other side of the tree line the suspect tried to run away to.
“The shootings. The drama,” Thomas said. “I never wished I would have moved over here.”
She said where she lives is not her favorite. Already at age seven, her daughter knows what a shooting looks like, seeing one outside their front door in July.
“All the police were here,” Thomas’ daughter said. “And everybody was out here.”
While news of a shooting so close didn’t surprise her, it did surprise Christopher Bell. He recently moved from Little Rock to Jacksonville, so his son wouldn’t be influenced by those living a life of crime.
“I moved him here where ain’t nobody can get to him,” Bell said. “You have to drive to get to him.”
Sunday’s armed robbery-turned-shooting discouraged him.
“You just try to go where the lower crime rate is at,” Bell said. “You ain’t going to be able to escape it. It’s everywhere you go.”
With the police department down the street from the restaurant, Bell said the suspect must have been desperate. Both Bell and Thomas are thankful the only injury authorities are reporting are for the suspect who is expected to recover.
“That’s a good thing,” Bell said. “They stopped it before anybody got hurt.”
“One less person we’ve got to worry about in this world,” Thomas added.
The officer involved in the shooting has been placed on leave while ASP officials investigate if his actions were justified. Their investigation will be turned over the prosecuting attorney to determine if the police actions were consistent with Arkansas law.