Photo: Mallory Vinson
A Mountain Home woman charged with pointing a pistol at other people as if intending to shoot them appeared in Baxter County Circuit Court Monday.
The charges against 30-year-old Mallory Vinson were dismissed by the state due to mental disease and defect.
Vinson will be placed in the Arkansas Conditional Release Program, created by Act 911 of 1989.
The “911 program” will require Vinson to be monitored for up to five years to ensure she remains in mental health treatment, is taking required medications and stays away from drugs, alcohol and weapons.
The requirements are similar to the terms and conditions defendants accept when they are put on probation.
Dr. Sandra Michel, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Arkansas Medical School in Little Rock, testified by video hookup during a hearing Monday. Dr. Michel recommended the court place Vinson in the conditional release program.
During a court session Feb. 25, Vinson’s attorney, Ben Burnett, attempted to plead his client to a misdemeanor.
He told Judge John Putman that no shots had been fired and, in fact, there were no bullets in the gun.
Burnett indicated a psychological examination done on Vinson after her arrest did “show some issues,” but that his client would forgo her right to raise those matters in her defense, if she was allowed to enter the misdemeanor plea.
He has pointed out to the court that earlier cases involving Vinson’s behavior in other counties had resulted in her being committed for treatment of mental issues.
Judge Putman said he was reluctant to accept a misdemeanor plea “in a case where a weapon — loaded or unloaded — was waived around and pointed at people.”
He set Monday as the date for a hearing to introduce evidence aimed at helping decide what plea would be appropriate given the circumstances.
Vinson was arrested after Mountain Home police were called to the Murphy USA gas station just before 3 p.m. April 3 last year.
A report had been made that a female was “waiving a pistol around.”
When Mountain Home police arrived, they located Vinson and took her into custody.
According to the probable cause affidavit, police obtained surveillance video from the day of the incident showing Vinson “pointing the pistol in the direction of others acting as though she was shooting them.”
Mountain Home police verified the gun in Vinson’s possession had been empty.
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