A Norfork man has been arrested after stealing a man’s truck who had stopped to help him and then ramming the police chief’s gate with the truck. It was the second arrest in three days for 25-year-old Joseph Walker Langston Jr. who is facing six charges for his latest incident, including two felonies.
According to the probable cause affidavit from the Baxter County Sheriff’s Office, it appears Langston was in a drug induced state during the incident, telling a deputy after arriving at the Baxter County Detention Center he had been awake for a few days and had tried to overdose on methamphetamine.
The events started when the sheriff’s office responded to a call at Langston’s residence on Jordan road shortly after 3:30 last Friday morning after he reported multiple armed people in his house making threats. Responding deputies did not find anyone.
Langston made another call about 5:00 that morning, but deputies determined the details of the call to be unfounded.
Then about 7:00 that morning, the sheriff’s office received a call from a motorist on Jordan road who had stopped after observing Langston squatting down in the ditch. He stopped to help him and Langston said someone had been shooting at him and his wife and his wife was hurt and lying nearby. When the caller went to check on her, Langston jumped in the man’s truck and took off.
About ten minutes later, Norfork Police Chief Dempsey Thompson radioed in that Langston had showed up at his residence in a panic with the same story he had told deputies and the victim of the stolen truck earlier. Chief Thompson placed Langston in his patrol car while he waited on deputies to arrive.
Chief Thompson noted when Langston arrived, he ran through a locked gate controlled by a power opener. Damage to the gate was estimated in excess of $1,000 and damage to the truck was estimated in excess of $1,000.
While en route to the jail, Langston began ducking down in the back seat of the patrol car, saying people in the woods were shooting at him and they had tied him up with razor wire.
Langston is facing felony charges of theft of property and first degree criminal mischief along with misdemeanor charges of driving while intoxicated drugs second offense, refusal to submit to a chemical test, driving on a suspended license and violation of a restricted license. He is free after posting $15,000 bond.
Earlier last week, Langston was arrested on charges of theft of property and failure to perform construction work without a license after allegedly taking money to do a job and never performing the work.
The victim had paid Langston over $12,000 to replace siding and windows on his house in Clarkridge.
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