A man was in custody Wednesday afternoon after police say he shot and killed a man at the CHI St. Vincent hospital in Sherwood earlier in the day, prompting fears of an active shooter threat.
However, the shooting appears to have been an isolated incident and the suspect, 24-year-old Raymond Lovett, of Little Rock, knew the victim, Leighton Whitfield, 21, of North Little Rock, Sherwood police Chief Jeff Hagar said.
"This is not an act of terrorism," Hagar said at a news conference at Arkansas State Police headquarters Wednesday afternoon, flanked by leaders of state police, the Pulaski County sheriff's office, Little Rock and North Little Rock police and the FBI's Little Rock field office.
Whitfield was visiting a friend who was being treated at the hospital on Wednesday morning, Hagar said.
Sherwood police got a report of shots fired at the hospital at 9:54 a.m., Hagar said, and officers swept the hospital, finding Whitfield fatally shot on the fourth floor.
"The suspect and the victim knew each other," Hagar said. "It appears to be an isolated event that just happened to take place in a public facility."
Little Rock police arrested Lovett without incident around 11:11 a.m. at an Exxon at 5223 South University Avenue, authorities said.
Interim Little Rock police Chief Wayne Bewley would not say if Lovett was armed at the time of his arrest, but said that he had been transferred to Sherwood police custody.
Charges had not been formally filed by 4 p.m. Wednesday, Hagar said, and police don't think anyone else was involved in the shooting.
Many of the hospital staff evacuated in line with their emergency training, said Chad Aduddell, CEO of CHI St. Vincent, but that two operations on the second floor continued through the incident because the surgeons deemed the procedures too important to interrupt.
"I can't express in words how brave they were," Aduddell said of the hospital staff.
The all-clear was given around 12:30 p.m. at the hospital, although Hagar said authorities were still gathering evidence.
The multi-agency response "was truly a testament to what law enforcement in Pulaski County is capable of," Hagar said.
In an tweet around 11:15 a.m., Sherwood police said they could "confirm an active shooter at [CHI St. Vincent]," a step Hagar said was taken to err on the side of caution when police did not know all the details of the incident.
"We're not going to guess on what's going on until we know," Hagar said.
He commended medical personnel and authorities from multiple agencies for assisting during what he called the "complete worst case scenario."
"We had officers from every jurisdiction you can imagine that responded to the call and to include our federal partners, and our state partners, county officials – we had a huge response and that's very appreciative," Hagar said
Authorities said they were able to secure and clear the hospital after it was placed on lockdown.
Jason Caldwell was in a second floor waiting room when he heard there was an active shooter on the fourth floor over the hospital's intercom.
Caldwell said his wife and his mother hid in a bathroom with four other people while more announcements alerted patients and staff that the situation was not a drill.
Police officers going door to door told Caldwell to stay put, he said. A few minutes later, they were evacuated.
"We knew it was on the fourth floor ... so I was calm," he said. "You see this on TV and it just brought back to reality that there is evil in this world and it shows its dirty head from time to time."
But his father was in surgery when the shooting happened, so Caldwell and his family were waiting outside the police perimeter for news of his father immediately after the shooting.
"They can't get out of there right now because they are barricaded in the surgical room," Caldwell said roughly 90 minutes after the shooting.
Also inside an operating room during the shooting was the wife of a man who was standing in the parking lot of the nearby Academy Sports store around noon.
He declined to give his name, but said his wife is a nurse and had texted him to say she was barricaded inside an operating room with her patient and about two dozen health care workers and patients.
They had pushed medical equipment against the door, the man said.
"The police came through and took all the non-essential people out, and the people that were still doing surgeries and recovering and everything else stayed back, so they're still in there," the man said early Wednesday afternoon.
"It's where they were doing surgeries," he said. "They can't stop."
The investigation is ongoing, according to authorities.