Arkansas police chief facing felony kidnapping charges
EUDORA, Ark. – An Arkansas State Police investigation into an October event has resulted in a southern Arkansas police chief facing felony kidnapping charges.
Court records show Eudora Police Chief Michael Henderson Pitts is facing charges related to a man being beaten on Oct. 26, 2023.
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According to the affidavit prepared by investigators, just before 7 p.m. that night Pitts was called to a gas station to remove a man.
The affidavit shows Pitts told ASP investigators he put the man in handcuffs, but then let him go and told him not to come back. He was not able to take the man to the county jail due to his patrol car’s bumper being in the back seat, he told investigators.
Investigators spoke to the man Pitts told them he had let go, who had a different version of the encounter.
According to investigators, the man told them Pitts had picked him up, handcuffed him, put him in the back of his patrol car, and taken him out to a county road south of town. On the way to the county road, the man told investigators, Pitts told him he was going to “beat his [redacted].”
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When they reached the county road the man told investigators he was taken from the back of the car and “subject to a brutal assault, resulting in significant injuries to his face and head.” Pitts then drove away, leaving the man by the side of the road, according to the investigator’s affidavit.
ASP officials said photographs documenting the man’s injuries had been appended to the investigator’s affidavit for warrant.
They also found evidence of the county road location, as the man told investigators he had lost a crack pipe he was trying to hide from Pitts at the site. Investigators found the crack pipe while searching the area.
Cell phone data also placed Pitts on the county road that night.
Pitts’s first court appearance was on Jan. 30, and he is currently free on a $5,000 bond. He is facing charges of felony kidnapping, punishable by 5 to 20 years and a $15,000 fine.
He was not taken into custody according to a Chicot County Detention Center spokesperson.
Calls were made to the Eudora Police Department and City Hall, but no officials were available who were willing to make a comment on Pitts’s status with the department. Callers to the police department for Pitts were directed to call the mayor’s office.
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