North Little Rock Police Officer Arrested, Charged With 3^rd Degree Battery

Officer Jon Crowder with the North Little Rock Police Department was arrest­ed and charged with mis­de­meanor Battery 3^rd. 

NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — On Thursday, June 27, Officer Jon Crowder with the North Little Rock Police Department was arrest­ed and charged with mis­de­meanor bat­tery for his actions stem­ming from a call for ser­vice that occurred August 27, 2018, accord­ing to the depart­ment.
According to an arrest affi­davit, dur­ing this inter­ac­tion and arrest, Officer Crowder uti­lized a lev­el of force which result­ed in injuries to a sub­ject who was arrest­ed on felony charges. While con­duct­ing his law enforce­ment duties, Crowder respond­ed to the SuperStay Motel at on West Pershing Boulevard to assist anoth­er offi­cer on a call. The ini­tial respond­ing offi­cer stat­ed over the radio a male sus­pect involved in the inci­dent was attempt­ing to leave in a blue car. 

The dash­cam video from Crowder’s patrol car shows him con­duct­ing a traf­fic stop on a blue vehi­cle at the entrance of West Pershing loca­tion. Crowder had the male sus­pect step out of the vehi­cle and move to the rear of the car. Crowder then placed the sus­pec­t’s hands behind his back, with the assis­tance of anoth­er respond­ing offi­cer, and was able to place him in hand­cuffs. 
During the course of the arrest, the dash cam­era video shows Crowder lift the man’s arms up behind his back, pin­ning his tor­so to the car. Crowder then trans­port­ed the man to the North Little Rock Police Department Detective Division. 

While at the sta­tion, the sus­pect com­plained of a pain in his arms and was trans­port­ed by anoth­er offi­cer to Baptist Health Spring Hill Emergency Room where he was diag­nosed as hav­ing mild­ly dis­placed fea­tures of the ulna bone in both elbow joints. After this encounter, a Subject Control file was cre­at­ed per depart­men­tal pol­i­cy and reviewed by super­vi­so­ry per­son­nel. It was deter­mined that pol­i­cy vio­la­tions occurred and result­ed in dis­ci­pli­nary action being tak­en against Crowder. 

Crowder was sus­pend­ed for a peri­od of 30 days start­ing on October 25, 2018. Upon review­ing the ini­tial felony case file for the arrest­ed sub­ject, the Pulaski County Prosecutors Office found that the officer’s actions while affect­ing the arrest rose to a crim­i­nal lev­el. The Office of the Chief of Police was noti­fied that the Pulaski County Prosecutor would be seek­ing charges against the officer. 

Upon learn­ing this infor­ma­tion, Crowder was imme­di­ate­ly removed from patrol and placed on mod­i­fied duty. A crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion was ini­ti­at­ed and an affi­davit was com­plet­ed and sub­mit­ted to the Pulaski County Prosecutor on Wednesday, June 26, 2019 at which time, an arrest war­rant was issued for mis­de­meanor Battery 3^rd. The war­rant has since been served. Crowder was charged through the Pulaski County District Court. Chief Mike Davis has pro­vid­ed the fol­low­ing state­ment regard­ing the incident:

“Protecting the com­mu­ni­ty is at the core of what we do. Ensuring our offi­cers under­go exten­sive train­ing that empha­sizes the need to under­stand and appre­ci­ate their author­i­ty and lim­i­ta­tions is para­mount to ensure we ful­fill our mis­sion. We serve at the will of our cit­i­zens and we are account­able to our com­mu­ni­ty. Giving offi­cers the author­i­ty to use rea­son­able force and pro­tect the pub­lic requires mon­i­tor­ing, eval­u­a­tion and care­ful bal­anc­ing of all inter­est. As always, we real­ize that to be effec­tive in an ever-chang­ing world, train­ing and edu­ca­tion must con­tin­ue through­out an officer’s career.”