TEENAGER ARRESTED AFTER THREATENING BOY IN FRONT OF DEPUTY

A Pine Bluff teenager was arrested Friday after he reportedly went to a barber shop where Jefferson County Chief Sheriff’s Deputy Stanley James was getting his hair cut, and threatened to beat an eight-year-old boy’s “head in.”

At a court hearing Monday, Circuit Judge Jodi Dennis ruled prosecutors had probable cause to charge Markee D. LaVeaux, 18, with terroristic threatening, and with second-degree battery after an investigation determined that LaVeaux had hit the younger boy a number of times two days earlier.

Reading from an affidavit from sheriff’s investigator Jennifer Carr, Deputy Prosecutor Sara Dalrymple said James was in the barber shop when LaVeaux came in and threatened the boy. James arrested LaVeaux after making the threat.

Dalrymple said investigators talked to the boy, and learned that he, LaVeaux and another young boy had ridden bicycles to the Wal-Mart Supercenter on Wednesday and LaVeaux became angry when the boy “wouldn’t steal a bicycle tire for him because his tire was flat.

“The victim said LaVeaux hit him five times while the other young man said eight to 10 times, resulting in large bruises around his eye and scratches to his face,” Dalrymple said. “The boy was initially afraid to tell his mother but she found out and called police.”

Dennis set a $1,500 bond for LaVeaux, who told the court he was “supposed to start school at the Adult Education Center next week,” and also ordered him to have no contact with either of the two boys until the case is settled.

— Ray King