Hectic police day a ‘statistical anomaly,’ captain says

PARAGOULD, Ark. (KAIT) - Tuesday was a hard day for the officers of the Paragould Police Department, with multiple significant incidents occurring back-to-back, including one in which an officer was shot.

Shortly after 7 a.m. Tuesday, police responded to a call, which they say led to an officer getting shot. Less than 10 minutes later, the department received a call for a fatal stabbing.

These incidents left police scrambling to distribute officers to the two different scenes. To cover both scenes, Captain Brad Snyder, public information officer for the Paragould Police Department. said they had to use a divide-and-conquer approach.

“Two major incidents at the same time, it does stretch your resources considerably,” he said. “We do have to prioritize.”

He added that the officer-involved shooting stunned the department’s colleagues.

“Crimes like those kind of bring you back to reality,” he said. “We consider each other to be a brother and sister in this business.”

The Greene County Sheriff’s Office responded to the fatal stabbing, allowing Paragould police to tend to their wounded officer.

“We have always been blessed here to utilize the Greene County Sheriff’s Office, Arkansas State Police, and even the Marmaduke police if it was needed,” said Snyder.

He has worked for the department since 1998 and said it’s hard to remember the last time they had a day like Tuesday.

Snyder said the last time one of their officers was shot was in 1911.

“Tuesday was what I call a statistical anomaly,” he said. “This is just something that does not happen often.”

When asked if something like Tuesday’s events were to happen again, Snyder had a simple answer: “We would do the same thing we did yesterday. We will start calling in other agencies and start calling in off-duty officers.”

Arkansas State Police are still investigating the officer-involved shooting,

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