Jonesboro, AR – (JonesboroRightNow.com) – June 3, 2024 – In a strange turn of events on Friday afternoon, the Jonesboro Police were called to a local department store for reports of “shots fired” inside the business.
According to the log, a call came into dispatch at 12:07pm on Friday. The caller advised that she heard 1 shot fired off, she did not see anything, but heard an employee say that a cop discharged their firearm. Another caller told dispatch at 12:11pm that it was a deputy who shot into the floor. They advised that the subject was trying to buy a new magazine for his weapon.
When police arrived at the Academy Sports in Jonesboro, they made contact with the Manager, Tina Holmes, who was in front of the store waiting for them to arrive. She escorted police to the gun counter where they then made contact with 53-year-old Ruben Ivey of Madison, Arkansas.
As Officers approached the gun counter, they saw Ivey’s weapon behind the desk, and noted that Ivey had no other weapons on him.
Officers noted that Ivey was wearing a Crittenden County SWAT t-shirt, but later found out that he was a St. Francis County Reserve Deputy, and currently works for the West Memphis Police Department.
The report states that the weapon belonging to Ivey was a Glock 43. He told officers that he was in Academy “looking for a new clip for his gun.”
Depending on the sequence of events that Ivey took to clear his weapon at the counter, an accidental discharge isn’t that uncommon. In fact, pulling the trigger is one way to ensure your weapon is unloaded properly. This is known as a dry fire. If the weapon is cleared properly, you get a *click* sound, if it isn’t, you get a *BANG*.
In order to clear (unload) his gun, Ivey would have needed to remove the magazine, then rack the slide to eject the bullet that was already in the chamber. Doing this sequence of events in the opposite order (racking the slide, then removing the magazine) and then pulling the trigger would cause a bullet to still be in the chamber and an accidental discharge to occur.
The report states that Ivey told officers that he “racked the slide several times” and then pointed at the ground to dry fire.
Ivey was temporarily detained while officers reviewed security cameras at the store.
Upon review of the footage, officers noted that Ivey was seen “halfway racking the firearm” then pulling the trigger which made it fire into the ground. Ivey was then seen “wailing the gun around in the air due to the shock of it going off.”
Ivey was cited with “Discharging a Firearm within City Limits,” a Jonesboro City Ordinance. His weapon was returned to him, but the bullet casing was seized.
We attempted to contact Academy Sports for comment, but our messages were not returned.
Quinton Robbins took to Facebook after he witnessed the incident. His narrative is below along with a statement about Ivey’s employment from a Crittenden County Sheriff Mike Allen.
