LITTLE ROCK-Christopher R. Thyer, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, announced today that U.S. District Court Judge J. Leon Holmes sentenced Mark Lyle Dodson, age 54, of Cabot, Arkansas, to five years’ imprisonment for assault with a deadly weapon to be followed by 10 years’ imprisonment for discharging a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, for a total sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment. Three years of supervised release will follow the prison sentence.
A Grand Jury indicted Dodson following a November 2013 shootout with members of the Jacksonville Police Department Special Response Team (SRT), who were assisting agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) execute a narcotics search warrant at Dodson’s Cabot home. When uniformed SRT members entered Dodson’s residence shouting "police" and "search warrant," he barricaded himself in an interior bedroom and twice fired a 16-gauge shotgun through a closed bedroom door while SRT members tried to enter. Pellets from his blasts struck three SRT members, hospitalizing one, and prompted return fire that hit Dodson. Minutes later, members of the same SRT team that Dodson fired upon gave him life-saving aid as he sat injured and bleeding on the bedroom floor.
Dodson pled guilty to the assault and discharge offenses on May 12, 2015. Under the terms of his plea agreement, the parties agreed upon a 15-year sentence, and the United States dismissed charges for conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and two additional counts each for assault and discharge that stemmed from the shootout.
The DEA Little Rock Field Office, Jacksonville Police Department SRT, and Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office investigated this matter. Assistant United States Attorneys Alexander D. Morgan and Anne Gardner prosecuted the case for the United States.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
