Hoxie Fire Department officials resign, mayor speaks on issue

HOXIE — An investigation into a recent house fire at a vacant house and a discussion over the issue has led to the resignations of two fire officials in Hoxie, with the city’s mayor saying they plan to move forward.

Hoxie Mayor Dennis Coggins said he has asked the Arkansas State Police to investigate the fire at the house, which belonged to him. Coggins said no utilities were hooked up at the house and he was in the process of moving into a new home down the road, when the fire happened around 5 a.m. on Nov. 19.

Coggins spoke with fire officials the next day after saying he was not notified about the fire. The conversation led then-Fire Chief Robert Needham and then-Assistant Fire Chief Robert Lee to resign.

Since then, Coggins said he has appointed Chuck Adams as the city’s fire chief.

When asked about the situation, Coggins said he believes there are rules to go by when reporting emergencies to residents. He also said that he respects both men who resigned.

Coggins also said he has faced battles in the past few months with the Hoxie City Council over different issues. For instance, the mayor said one council member has “raised heck” over hiring and firing in the city. The mayor noted he has told the council member and the council that state law allows for one person, the mayor, to decide the issue.

The mayor also said he has told that council member if “he wants to run for mayor, he can have it.”

As for his own political future, Coggins said he plans to run for mayor during the next municipal mayor’s election in 2026.

“I plan to run again, if the people want me. If not, then I won’t,” Coggins said. In the interim, Coggins said the city has been working to attract several businesses to town, finishing up work on a new city park project and starting on a $500,000 road project in January.

The Hoxie City Council is next scheduled to meet on Dec. 12.

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WHITE COUNTY — The gun pointed at a White County deputy last week that led to an officer-involved shooting turned out to be a toy. However, the “black metal toy gun” listed in the inventory of a search warrant was “realistic,” according to county officials, and threats had been made to shoot officers before at least 130 shots were discharged into the Tweedy Road residence.

Lt. Scott Seiders, public information officer for the White County Sheriff’s Office, said 10 officers were placed on paid administrative leave after the Nov. 14 shooting death of Curtis Lee Lindsey, 47, at a mobile home in the McRae area. Most have returned to work, he said, after being preliminarily cleared to do so by 17th Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney Becky McCoy while an Arkansas State Police investigation is being conducted.

“The [state police] investigation is not complete but the evidence that the prosecutor has seen so far allowed her to write a letter that said basically, ‘I’m OK if the guys go back to work,’” Seiders said

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Wednesday. “I don’t think there’s going to be charges but the investigation is not closed yet.”

Seiders said the sheriff’s office has always used the state police when there is use-offorce cases involving its officers. All those involved were interviewed by state police detectives, he said.

Pending receipt of the state police’s complete file, McCoy wrote in a letter to Sheriff Phillip Miller dated Nov. 15 that “it appears the deputies involved used appropriate and reasonable deadly force against Lindsey.”

McCoy wrote that she had reviewed the “pertinent White County Sheriff’s Department body camera and dash camera footage” along with a statement from a witness, the 911 call log and evidence collected at the scene of the shooting early Nov. 14, which followed an attempted traffic stop by a deputy at approximately 9:45 p.m. Nov. 13.

Lindsey reportedly fled from the traffic stop by vehicle and then by foot. “Approximately 15 seconds into the foot pursuit,” McCoy wrote, the deputy “advised dispatch that Lindsey had a gun.”

This deputy’s body camera footage, according to McCoy’s letter, captures Lindsey making multiple threats to shoot him. “At least one civilian witness stated he heard Lindsey threaten to shoot” the deputy, she wrote.

Lindsey was tracked by a K-9 to the residence on Tweedy Road, which he reportedly barricaded himself inside.

“Between 11:47 p.m. and 1:14 a.m., deputies and members of the Special Response Team attempted to resolve the standoff,” McCoy wrote.

When they were unable, “non-lethal gas canisters were introduced into the trailer; however, they were not effective.”

A deputy, “through a partially opened front door,” saw Lindsey “holding what appeared to be a firearm,” McCoy wrote.

Another deputy saw Lindsey “through a back window point what he believed to be a firearm” at his head “and threaten to shoot him.” He “began firing his service weapon into the residence. At virtually the same moment,” the other deputy, members of the SRT and other deputies also “began firing into the trailer,” and Lindsey was fatally shot. “Inside the trailer, near Lindsey’s body, officers located a realistic revolver-styled ‘cap’ gun,” McCoy wrote.

A copy of the state police search warrant executed from 4:15 a.m.-9:30 a.m. Nov. 14 and left inside the residence was provided to The Daily Citizen by Lindsey’s brother, Thomas, who is from Kensett. It showed that in addition to the toy gun, there were 118 .223 shell casings, 12 .40-caliber shell casings and 12 40mm CS gas canisters found. “My brother was killed last week by White County Sheriff’s Department,” Thomas Lindsey said in an email.

“While they said he had a gun, my brother did not have a gun. The only gun that was recovered on the scene was a toy gun that was found in his home. They fired over 138 rounds into my brother’s home and into him. That is not including the 12 gas canisters that were fired into his home.

“My brother lives in a small 12×20 little trailer. My brother was a good man and no man, no person deserves such excessive use of deadly force.

To make matters worse, my brother had no weapon, he fired no shots at the White County Sheriff’s Department.

They issued a statement saying he was a bad person, had some warrants. There’s no excuse, there’s no justice in this.”

Seiders said that at the time of the shooting, Curtis Lindsey “had outstanding warrants from Kensett, Beebe, White County, Van Buren County and Nevada County.” In addition to the warrants, Seiders said Lindsey was an absconder, “i.e., he had violated his parole and was headed back to prison when caught.”

Thomas Lindsey mentioned that he also was a cousin of Hunter Brittain, the 17-yearold from McRae who was killed during a traffic stop by a then-Lonoke County deputy in June 2021. Lindsey, an Army veteran, walked with an American flag in memory of his cousin and to help raise awareness “of the out-of-control loss of life by the hands of police to its citizens.”

“I come home from war to find the war at home,” he said. “We have lost sight of what is important, that is life.

Life is taken so easily. … Neither my cousin nor brother in both situations had a gun, fired a shot. It was a threat to police. Police hide behind this immunity while we bury our dead.

“I will fight and continue to march to get some justice or at least bring some awareness, but this has to stop. This is not a war zone. What is wrong with people? What is wrong with the police? This is not OK. We have lost the true spirit of humanity and love for each other as Americans.”

Lindsey said his efforts were “not an attack on the law, but a fight against the hearts of men and women … to see that life to be taken should be the last and the hardest thing to do. … Take it from somebody who has taken many of them.” Sgt. Michael Davis was fired by the Lonoke County Sheriff’s Office after he shot and killed Brittain. In March 2022, he was convicted of misdemeanor negligent homicide by a Lonoke County jury and sentenced to a year in jail and $1,000 fine. The jury found him not guilty of felony manslaughter for which he could have been sentenced to up to 10 years in prison. The Arkansas Court of Appeals upheld the conviction in September. While a few of the officers involved in last week’s shooting have not returned to work, Seiders said “that is a personal decision.”

He said there are three factors that have to be considered relating to the officers put on paid leave. The first part is the “legal” aspect of the investigation. “Did they break the law?”

Next, Seiders said is the internal review process, concerning if the officers did anything wrong by sheriff’s office policy. He said that investigation has been completed.

“Then there is the mental health aspect,” Seiders said. Is the officer OK to come back to work?

Seiders said he does not foresee any legal or policy issues.

Whether an individual is ready to come back to work, though, is up to each officer.