UAM employee arrested
Published by Jason April 18th, 2007 in Police /Legal.A member of the grounds staff at the University of Arkansas at Monticello has been taken into custody after an incident that occured on campus yesterday. According to Jim Brewer, Director of Media Relations at UAM, a member of the staff identified as Paul Fong became disoriented for unknown reasons yesterday while working on the campus grounds.
According to Brewer, Fong made his way back to the maintenance shed, and individuals there called the campus nurse. Upon arrival, the nurse recommended that an ambulance be called to treat Fong. Sometime after the ambulance arrived Fong became belligerent and was at that point transported to Drew Memorial Hospital. After arriving at the hospital, Fong directed threatening remarks towards the university, and officials at the hospital felt it necessary to contact the Drew County Sheriff’s Office. After investigation the Sheriff’s Office felt it necessary to take Fong into custody. Fong was transferred to the Drew County Detention Facility where he currently remains.
In an email to students and faculty from UAM Vice Chancellor of Student Activities Clay Brown and Director of Public Safety John Kidwell, the following was stated:
The member of the UAM grounds maintenance staff that was suspended from the campus for making threatening remarks concerning campus safety was taken into custody yesterday. This individual will not be permitted on campus until further assurances of campus safety have been made. The individual was taken to Drew Memorial Hospital for medical evaluation before being transferred to the Drew County Detention Facility, where he is currently being held. All other questions concerning the disposition of this incident should be directed to the Drew County Sheriff’s Office or the UAM Office of Public Safety.
Please do not hesitate to call 1000 from any campus phone to report any behavior you consider suspicious.
In addition, UAM Chancellor Dr. Jack Lassiter said the following in a campus-wide email earlier today:
I know that we all share sympathy and concern for our fellow students and educators at Virginia Tech. I also know that the incident that occurred on our campus yesterday has created concern for campus safety. The openness of a university campus and the right of individuals to come and go throughout the campus causes us to be ever mindful of unusual behavior on campus. You should never hesitate to call 1000 from any campus phone or 460-1000 or 911 from a cell phone or off campus phone to report any behavior you consider suspicious.
I remind you of several characteristics of campus safety you should keep in mind:
- Campus Security officers are always on patrol. We have 24/7 coverage and all officers are commissioned law enforcement officers. We also have regular patrols of the campus provided by the City of Monticello Police and the Drew County Sheriff’s Office. Our two College of Technology campuses have the same support from local and county officials.
- Residence Hall Directors and Resident Assistants, as well as campus security officers, are present in the residence halls every day.
- There are surveillance cameras and recorders in Bankston, Royer, and Maxwell Halls and in the Gibson University Center.
- Our resident directors in the residence halls are expertly trained in safety procedures and are well experienced in communicating quickly and effectively with residents in a time of emergency.
- The living areas of our residence halls are secure 24 hours a day and students who live in each hall gain access using only university issued keys.
- Ten Emergency Blue Light Phones are placed at strategic locations throughout the campus. These phones are direct lines to the Public Safety Department.
- Our Public Safety Department regularly reviews and practices scenarios involving armed subjects and they are fully supported by city, county, state and federal law enforcement agencies.
- We have the support of a full time University Nurse and Counseling Center that provides services to students, faculty and staff.
In response to some questions I have received, let me assure you that UAM has the capacity of sending emergency mass e-mails to all faculty, staff and students. We also have mass telephone messaging for all campus phones. Our Director of Media Services works closely with local media to announce all campus emergency information.
Please feel free to contact my office or any member of the Executive Council if you should have any questions about emergency procedures.
Possibly Related:
Do we know exactly what charges have been or will be filed against Mr. Fong? What sort of threats did he make? So far, this story — from all sources — seems uncomfortably vague.
I agree with Michael, what was the “incident” that occurred?
Vague? Vague? Vague? My gosh, this doesn’t seem like a sotry, more like a gossip bit from one person to another.
What we know: 1. He became disoriented. 2. He went back to maintenance building and was seen by the nurse. 3. The nurse arrived, called an ambulance and he was taken to the local hospital. 4. He made some smart mouth comments taken as threats, and was throw in jail.
Wouldn’t you love to be the prosecutor on this? What is there to prosecute? He ran off at the mouth at our local hospital and was locked up. Where are the grounds? What lead to the arrest other than his comments? What? What? What? There are a lot of unanswered questions to this story. Seems to me this should have been looked into more before it was labeled a “story.” There is a lot left to be said about this incident.
Josh,
have you not been paying attention to the news? More than ten states have received threats since the V-Tech massacre. In this situation you don’t ask too many questions before acting, otherwise you could have alot of dead people on your hands. I can see you posting this in a different way. What if this guy had been let go to turn away and act on what he said? You’d probably be writing about how the University should have taken him into custody. It was a smart thing the administration did here. The full story will manifest itself in time. Until then, the students on this campus know not to play around with words right now.
Well said Colt!
This story has been recently updated. When Michael and I left comments, there were NO details whatsoever. To have our comments beneath this NOW detailed story is VERY misleading.
I would also encourage comments on the follow-up story. However, what the initial commenters failed to realize is that because websites of this nature are able to post “breaking news,” sometimes a news story is limited to just the information that something has happened. As is evidenced by national media many times, there are simply no details to be had at certain points in a story.
We updated the story as soon as we were able to get more details from the sheriff’s office. Thank you all for your patience.
Thanks, Jeff, for clarifying that, I would not want people to think I take this type of crime lightly.
I only said it was vague when it WAS vague. Now that the whole story is out there, it makes complete sense that he was locked up.
This whole thing with Virginia Tech is a horrible situation that is beyond my comprehension as to how the people are dealing with it all. My prayers are with them all. I commend and appreciate ALL that was done out on the UAM campus with the man that made threats. Nothing like that can be taken lightly as we so tragically found out! It has to be a very difficult job trying to handle all the different situations that come up with students, faculty and all the people that frequent the campus on a daily basis. Clay Brown, Jack Lassiter and all the people out there that had a hand in this took care of it very professionally and quickly before anything terrible happened or could have happened. I have a child who attends out there daily and I for one am very glad it was handled the way it was. Keep up the good work UAM!
The fact remains that when this guy was taken into custody, there were no named charges. At the time my comments were made, the information was limited, and there was no known evidence that this man did anything wrong other than run off at the mouth. The entire thing was sketchy, and therefore was worthy of my comments at the time. So, you should take that into consideration. Apparently, the sheriff’s office has decided to release more evidence, in depth, therefore making a foundation for their case.
He is at work, becomes disoriented, is taken to medical experts, becomes belligerent, goes the the hospital and then goes off making comments and threats towards UAM…..what more does anyone need to know? I think NOTHING! Hats off to UAM for handling this in a fast, efficient and cautious effort! By acting fast, taking things into a controlled atmosphere and asking questions later……….no one was potentially injured, harmed, etc. If your going to “go off” on someone and make terroristic threats of harm, then be ready to have your a*& thrown in jail! If Fong was just “angry” for this being blown out of propertion, then he shouldve just kept his mouth shut. Its time people start having to be responsible for their actions, even if it is just running their mouth! I hope and pray that the students of UAM can feel safe on their campus. If you don’t act “out of control” or “crazy” then no one has to assume that you are. It is as simple as that!
Right. No one can assume anything these days. The point that everyone was making is that the story was open ended. There was nothing that explained what he did, said, or anything that lead to the arrest. That is the only point that anyone was trying to make.
Now, that the Sheriff’s dept. has decided to release what took place, I think everyone is fine. What was initially put out was that a man was arrested for becoming disoriented and mouthing, and that was it. If each person that became disoriented or mouthed was arrested, Monticello wouldn’t have the room in its jails to hold them all.
What UAM did was great, Jack and the staff acted as they should have, and in light of what happened at VT this week, it is good to know we have a campus staff that takes the necessary precautions.
I understand your points, but we still think the first story was appropriate in its nature and content.Maybe a more main stream word than “belligerent,” such as “threatening” or “hostile” should have been used, but it was used by sources.
According to dictionary.com, belligerent is defined as:
1. warlike; given to waging war.
2. of warlike character; aggressively hostile; bellicose: a belligerent tone.
3. waging war; engaged in war: a peace treaty between belligerent powers.
4. pertaining to war or to those engaged in war: belligerent rights.
We think that was an accurate description of what was taking place at the time of the first story.
but the point is, we didn’t know he was making threats when the initial story was posted. it was only one paragraph, that had no detail.
I totally agree at this point that it should not be taken lightly.
I think everyone is missing the forrest because of the trees. What do we know? Or better yet, what did we know at the time? We knew that Mr. Fong was belligerent. We knew he had been taken to the hospital. We knew that he had made comments at the hospital that made it necessary for the police to become involved. Now let us ask ourselves some questions. How long can the police hold you without charging you? The police can hold you for 72 hours in lieu of questioning. Were they able to interview him or question him immediately? If he was belligerent, or incoherrent it is doubtful.Did you have a right to know that something had happened at UAM. Yes you did.It seems that many of you feel that information flows like water when you turn on your faucet. I compare it more to the old hand pump on a well. You walk up to it, put the bucket under the spout and start pumping. Hopefully, if your lucky, something falls into the bucket that you can use. I feel the story explained exactly what we and everyone else knew at the time. It also stopped many rumors that were running in all directions. Truthfully, until he is charged it is not a matter of public record. The fact is you can report on public knowledge, and public record. It is easy to comment on the way things are done when you cannot be held responsible for what you say. I will not, and Monticello Live will not, do anything but the right thing. The original, as it stood, did what it was supposed to do. Informed you that something had happened, what it was, who was involved, and what actions had been taken. All stories are open ended. This story is still open ended. Until he is convicted or whatever the disposition of the case, this story is open ended.