1 Hurt in Shooting on Arkansas Children’s Hospital Campus

One person was shot in the leg Monday morning in what authorities described as a random shooting on the campus of the Arkansas Children’s Hospital.

• By Jessica Davis
• May 29, 2019

One person was shot in the leg Monday morning in what authorities described as a random shooting on the campus of the Arkansas Children’s Hospital.

Officers responded to a call about gunfire at the hospital campus at about 9:20 a.m. Officers found a male on the scene suffering from a non-life-threatening gunshot wound to his lower leg, according to Little Rock Police Department spokesman Eric Barnes.

The victim reportedly declined medical attention once officers arrived, but he is expected to survive.

The shooter had confronted the victim before shooting him, Barnes said. The name of the victim has not been released, and no arrests were immediately made.

The shooting took place less than a week after the Children’s Hospital experienced a false alarm of an active shooter.

A critical alert about an active shooter situation was mistakenly sent to hospital staff shortly before noon on May 21, hospital spokesman Hilary DeMillo said.

"It was sent out by accident," DeMillo said. "It was a completely and absolute false alarm. The area was never in danger."

Hospital employees were notified it was a false alarm within minutes, DeMillo said.

"Today's false alarm was due to an error in managing a high volume of regional weather safety alerts," DeMillo said. "Arkansas Children's holds safety as a core value. We will process and review the situation through that lens."

Chanda Chacon, Chief Operating Officer for Arkansas Children’s health system, said that staff are trained to respond quickly to all emergency alerts.

"Our team followed our internal protocols," Chacon said. "We are already in the process of learning from this false alarm to ensure that we maintain the safest possible environments for our patients, families and team."