JONESBORO, Ark. — Students rushed for cover Thursday afternoon after a man armed with a gun, gasoline, and a large propane tank showed up on campus.
Reed McPherson and his roommate Jordan were trying desperately to keep people away after they came face to face with 47-year-old Brad Bartelt.
“He pointed at me and him and said ‘It’s a personal problem we don’t want innocent lives involved in this,'” said McPherson.
The sophomores said they talked to Bartelt because he was making donuts in the grass with his truck and they thought it was a student being funny.
Soon, they saw the shotgun.
“He was looking in the bed of his truck, we got ways away and called the police,” said McPherson.
They rushed to warn others not to come the man’s way.
Freshman Tyler Gavin was inside the student union where Bartelt had parked.
“I ran with like 200 people,” he said of the chaotic scene. “Pushing, shoving, everyone trying to get out.”
Outside, police were trying to figure out what Bartelt wanted.
Officers negotiated with him; the bomb squad was called in, as well as the SWAT team.
“There were times he got out of the truck sprinkling gas on the truck and holding the gun on himself,” said Rick Elliott, Jonesboro’s Police chief.
Bartlet lives about six minutes from campus on a wooded, secluded lot.
Neighbors told us he snapped this week after his disability benefits were denied.
Wednesday, he posted on Facebook that he was hurt in an accident in 2012 at ASU’s Newport campus.
Bartlet also posted that he needed help and said he was suicidal and homicidal.
Students were just glad no one was hurt, no shots were fired, and the alert systems to warn everyone appeared to be successful.
