TEXARKANA, Texas–A former employee of a local equipment manufacturing business was arrested Friday after allegedly making threats to harm his former co-workers.
Byron Phillip Powell, 41, on Thursday allegedly told a Ledwell & Son’s employee he encountered outside the gate on Waco St. in Texarkana that he “really came here to kill all these [expletives],” after the employee told him he couldn’t be on the property, according to a probable cause affidavit. The employee who told Powell to leave reported him to police, fearing that the disgruntled former worker might cause harm to the employees on site.
Powell was allegedly drinking when he approached the business and reportedly asked another employee who approached, “Who is God to you,” before saying, “You better figure it out.”
Powell’s conduct reportedly led leadership at Ledwell to lock down the campus and initiate security measures that interfered with the normal day-to-day operations, the affidavit said. Texarkana Texas Police Dept. investigators reportedly learned from law enforcement in Hooks, Texas, where Powell resides, that Powell allegedly acquired a handgun recently.
Powell was arrested Friday on a charge of terroristic threatening, placing the public in fear of serious bodily injury and is being held in the Bowie County jail with bond set at $150,000. Jail records show that Powell is also being held for Texas parole.
Powell was sentenced in 2022 in Bowie County to a five-year prison term for evading arrest in a vehicle, court records show.
If convicted of terroristic threatening, Powell faces two to ten years in a Texas prison.
