A Mountain Home man charged in June last year with involvement in his second shooting incident pled guilty to the charges against him during a session of Baxter County Circuit Court Thursday.
Thirty-two-year-old Alan Whitman was sentenced to six years in prison. He is already serving time in connection with the initial shooting incident that happened in November 2019. He is currently an inmate in the Cummins Modular Unit of the state prison system.
In his most recent case involving a firearm, Whitman was charged with terroristic threatening, using another person’s property to facilitate a crime and first-degree battery.
In the June incident, Whitman is accused of shooting a 21-year-old male in the leg and leaving him on the side of the road.
The victim was able to call a relative who picked him up and took him to Baxter Regional Medical Center for treatment of the his gunshot wound.
According to the probable cause affidavit, the victim said he received a message from Whitman saying he wanted to talk. Whitman picked the victim up at his residence. At one point, Whitman is reported to have told the victim he wanted to discuss a “rumor” about the victim allegedly forcing himself on a woman Whitman knew. The victim denied the rumor.
Whitman and the victim continued to drive around. At one point, they were reported to have stopped by a residence where Whitman is alleged to have gotten the handgun used to shoot the victim.
As the pair headed toward Old Arkana Road, Whitman is alleged to have told the victim he was about to be asked questions about the rumor, and that his life depended on how those questions were answered.
At one point, according to investigators, Whitman pulled over and ordered the victim out of the vehicle. He was alleged to have shot the man once in the right leg before fleeing the scene, abandoning the wounded man.
Whitman had initially contended the gun belonged to the victim and that he was attempting to show the younger man how to use the pistol when it accidentally discharged.
Investigators determined the gun belonged to a woman in Mountain Home.
The woman called law enforcement and told them she had seen Whitman’s photo on the Baxter County Detention Center inmate log. After seeing the photo, the woman said she searched for her gun and found it missing. The description she gave of the weapon matched the one found in Whitman’s vehicle. The gun was found to have one round discharged.
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