On the night of Friday, October 21, 2022, at GT Ashley McAlmont Community Park off Arkansas Highway 161 near North Little Rock, 18-year-old Kirk Kirkwood, a Black male from North Little Rock, became the victim of a fatal shooting. Deputies from the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office were called to the park around 11 p.m. after reports of gunfire; when they arrived, they found him in the park with fatal gunshot wounds and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
The park, a neighborhood gathering spot along the highway, was suddenly transformed into an active crime scene under bright emergency lights as investigators began documenting what had happened.
In the immediate aftermath, law enforcement cordoned off parts of the park and nearby roadway while they searched for casings, collected evidence, and spoke with anyone who might have seen or heard the shooting. Early statements to local media described only that a male had been shot and killed; authorities initially did not share a suspect description or a possible motive. Kirk’s identity was later released publicly, confirming him as the person killed in the park that night, and investigators urged anyone with information to call the sheriff’s office. Online memorials soon followed, with gun-violence remembrance sites listing his name, noting that he was lost to gunfire in Little Rock on October 21, 2022, and inviting friends, family, and strangers to light virtual candles in his memory.
As detectives worked the case, the picture that emerged pointed to multiple suspects rather than a single assailant. In the weeks after the shooting, the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office issued a public be-on-the-lookout alert naming four people wanted for capital murder in connection with Kirk’s death. Investigators identified the suspects as 17-year-old Deonte Kevonne Harris, Johnathan “Papa” Russell Wright, Justin Davis, and Carl Lewis Kendle Jr. According to the alert, they were believed to be traveling in a white Mitsubishi Galant with Arkansas license plate AIU16Z, and that vehicle description was broadcast widely. Television reports and social media posts from local outlets emphasized that all four were being sought on capital murder charges tied directly to the killing at McAlmont Community Park, and the sheriff’s office appealed for help from anyone who might recognize the names or the car.
The search soon led to the first arrest. By November 18, 2022, deputies had located Harris and taken him into custody on the capital murder warrant. Officials announced his arrest publicly, noting that he was one of the four suspects linked to the park homicide. The manhunt for the others continued into early December, and the sheriff’s office later told reporters that three of the four suspects were already in custody, leaving only Kendle still at large. At that point, authorities again highlighted the white Mitsubishi Galant and repeated Kendle’s name and description, asking the public to call if they saw him or had any information about his whereabouts. The investigation, which had begun with little more than shell casings on the ground and a fatal shooting in a darkened park, was steadily narrowing toward a complete set of arrests.
Before the year ended, deputies announced that the last suspect had been found. On December 26, 2022, the sheriff’s office reported that Kendle was now in custody, confirming that all four of the individuals named in the BOLO had been located and jailed on capital murder charges stemming from the McAlmont Community Park killing. Public reporting on the case, however, has left many details undisclosed: investigators have not released a full account of what drew the group to the park that night, what kind of confrontation or plan preceded the gunfire, or precisely how each suspect is alleged to have taken part. What remains in the record is the outline of a case in which a community park along Highway 161 became the site of a sudden killing, followed by a multi-suspect investigation that stretched from late October through the end of December, bringing four accused participants into the courts even as the deeper story of what happened to Kirk has largely stayed inside police files and courtroom proceedings.
