Hope teen charged after predawn shootout sends bullets through sleeping man’s home; two stolen Glocks found

HOPE, Ark. — An 18-year-old Hope man has been charged with a felony after police say a predawn gunfight on the city’s east side sent bullets through a house where a man was asleep in bed, and officers found him hiding in an abandoned trailer with a 14-year-old and three pistols, two of them stolen.

Freddie Louis Adams III was formally charged Wednesday in Hempstead County Circuit Court with terroristic act, a Class B felony, and two counts of theft by receiving a firearm, a Class D felony. The information was filed by Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Ben Hale.

Hope police were called to the area of Dairy and Allen streets about 2:49 a.m. Sept. 18 on a report of shots fired, according to an affidavit by Hope Police Detective Casey Singleton.

A man in the 400 block of East Hickory Street told officers he was inside his home when he heard multiple gunshots and then found a bullet hole in his front door, the affidavit says. Officers found one round had entered through the back of the house and exited the front door, and a second had gone through the shower wall and lodged in a bathroom wall.

The resident was asleep in bed when the shooting started, Singleton wrote, and one of the bullets passed “just one to two feet above the bed” as it traveled through the house.

Officers picked up 9mm shell casings, 14 in all, stretched over about 50 feet of East Hickory Street, and three more on North Long Street near Oak Street, according to the affidavit.

While officers were canvassing the area, a resident of Oak Street called dispatch to report that a man dressed in black and carrying what appeared to be a gun had run into an abandoned house in the 1200 block of North Long Street, the affidavit says.

Officers spotted a man through a window of the trailer and ordered him out at gunpoint. After about three minutes of commands, Adams and a 14-year-old came out and lay on the floor, and both were arrested, according to the affidavit. TXKtoday is not naming the juvenile.

Under the trailer’s back steps, officers found a green Glock 9mm pistol fitted with a drum magazine, a black-and-silver Glock 9mm and a black Glock .40-caliber pistol, the affidavit says. A records check showed the green pistol had been reported stolen to the Texarkana, Arkansas, Police Department and the black-and-silver one had been reported stolen in Magnolia, according to the affidavit. A bag of marijuana was found where the two had been hiding.

Singleton wrote that the rounds in the pistols’ magazines were consistent with the casings found at both scenes.

Adams told officers he had been shot at from a white Buick and was running away, and that he did not have a gun and had not been shooting, the affidavit says. Singleton wrote that Adams made the statements on his own, not in response to questioning.

Based on where the casings were found, the detective concluded that two people had been shooting at each other, one on East Hickory Street and Adams near Long and Oak streets, and that the shots that hit the house came from the shooter on Long Street, the affidavit says. The affidavit does not identify the second shooter, and no one else has been charged in the case in circuit court records.

Adams was booked the morning of the shooting on a Class Y terroristic act charge, two counts of theft by receiving, misdemeanor marijuana possession and a city ordinance violation for discharging a firearm inside the city limits. At his first appearance Sept. 19, a judge set his bond at $100,000, with the option of posting 10 percent, and appointed a public defender.

The information filed Wednesday charges the terroristic act count as a Class B felony, which applies when no one is injured, rather than the Class Y version listed at his arrest. A Class B felony carries five to 20 years in prison. Theft by receiving a firearm worth less than $2,500 is a Class D felony punishable by up to six years.

Adams also faces a separate felony forgery charge filed Sept. 23 in Hempstead County. In that case, a Hope police detective wrote that a Domino’s Pizza delivery driver was paid for an Aug. 23 order on Robinson Road with two $20 bills marked “Motion Picture Use Only,” and that the driver identified Adams from an Instagram photo as the person who handed him the money.

A charge is an accusation, and Adams is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.