The man drove onto Arkansas State University’s campus Thursday, sparking a lockdown before police took him into custody without any shots fired

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

An armed man drove onto the Arkansas State University campus on Thursday, sparking a campus lockdown before police took him into custody without any shots fired, a university spokesman said.

The man, identified by police as Brad Kenneth Bartelt, 47, of Jonesboro, was taken into custody about an hour after the incident began, spokesman Bill Smith said, and the university lifted the lockdown for all parts of campus except for the east side of the student union.



Jonesboro police spokesman Paul Holmes said bomb squad technicians were going to examine the truck the suspect had driven into the middle of campus.

The school sent an alert early Thursday afternoon urging the evacuation of the student union following a report of an “active shooter”. A later tweet said there were no shots fired and no reports of injuries.

Holmes said a negotiator was sent to the scene to speak with the man. It wasn’t clear what, if any, discussions took place.



Jonesboro police said they had received a call Wednesday about a Facebook post Bartelt wrote in which he stated he was homicidal and suicidal and referred to an incident with the social security administration.

John Miller, a junior at Arkansas State, told the Arkansas Democrat Gazette in a phone interview that he was taking a test in the humanities building when he saw a green pickup drive onto the lawn in front of the union.

About five minute later, after finishing his test, Miller said “people came running and screaming, freaking out”.



At that point, Miller ran with several women to the library as police and Swat team officers began descending on the campus, he said.

The university is in Jonesboro, about 130 miles north-east of Little Rock. Its enrollment is more than 13,000, but not all students were on campus Thursday because it was the second day of final exams.

Jonesboro is also home to Westside middle school, where an 11-year-old and 13-year-old fatally shot four students and a teacher in 1998.