Good Guy with a Gun #175: Little Rock, AR
Chad Green pepper-sprayed an armored car driver. Got shot. Then — sued Loomis? The judge was not impressed. | Original incident: April 24, 2024
These posts are based on our Good Guy with a Gun calendar. Today’s post is significantly updated from the calendar version.
This is a weird one. Let’s start with what John Martin saw, since he’s the one who fired the bullets.
The incident
Martin and a partner, as employees of the Loomis armored truck company, were restocking an ATM just before 8 AM on a Thursday morning.
A man walked up to them and asked Martin how he was doing.
Then he sprayed pepper spray in Martin’s face.
Martin drew his personal handgun, shot at the man, and scrambled for cover behind the armored truck. Then he fired again.
The man got on a bicycle and rode away into some nearby woods. He made his way to his car and started driving — but he had two bullet holes in him, so he pulled over and called 911. He was picked up and taken to the hospital, where he was listed in stable condition.
It seems pretty clear that Martin was in the right: Someone hits an armored car driver with pepper spray, he’s got to be worried about what comes next.
And it seems pretty clear that the pepper-spraying man on the bike was in the wrong.
But hang on.
The strange turn
It turns out that the guy on the bike was Chad Green, a Little Rock defense attorney — well-respected, by all appearances. Acquaintances said this wasn’t like him. What was going on?
While Green was in the Emergency Room, he was given blood tests, and doctors discovered that he had Hashimoto encephalopathy. Quoting rarediseases.org:
Hashimoto encephalopathy is a rare autoimmune neurological disorder characterized by impaired brain function (encephalopathy)....
The main signs and symptoms are related to encephalopathy, a condition that is characterized by cognitive impairment, altered consciousness, psychiatric symptoms and seizures. Progression can be acute, relapsing-remitting, or slowly progressive. Behavioral abnormalities, confusion, hallucinations and sleep disturbances are common. The syndrome is often misdiagnosed as a primary psychiatric disorder or another form of encephalopathy.
A circuit judge accepted this explanation, offered by a state psychologist and another doctor, in August, 2025 — sixteen months after the incident. His ruling said, “The defendant committed the charged offense but lacked criminal responsibility at the time due to mental disease or defect.”
Green committed the act, but he was literally out of his right mind at the time. That changes things, doesn’t it?
In the meantime, Green suffered through real medical, professional, and social issues. He was temporarily suspended from the bar. He filed for bankruptcy. He lost a kidney and part of his colon. He was hospitalized for ten days and continued to experience pain — one of the bullets remained lodged near his pelvis — and emotional distress. And of course he was a pariah for a lot of people who weren’t aware of what he was going through medically. It’s enough to make me feel really, really bad for him.
And then he filed his lawsuit.
Really? A lawsuit?
Who was he suing? Wasn’t he the one who started all this by macing someone? Even if he wasn’t in his right mind when he did it, did anyone else do anything wrong?
Here’s paragraph six of Green’s complaint. If you’re not conversant in legalese, you just need to know that Plaintiff = Chad Green.
On April 24, 2024, the Plaintiff, while experiencing a temporary episode of psychosis approached Mr. Martin as Martin was servicing an ATM machine. The Plaintiff was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s encephalopathy after this incident and was not aware that he had the condition beforehand. The Plaintiff sprayed Martin with pepper spray and turned to walk away. Martin created distance between himself and the Plaintiff and just reacted by firing at least four shots at Plaintiff from his handgun. The Plaintiff screamed in pain and fell down onto a grassy area with his arms stretched out and palms upward, and was screaming that he did not have a gun and to please stop shooting. Although Martin was wearing a ballistic vest, and was provided armored cover by the armored car, Martin ran around the front of the armored car while Plaintiff was lying on the ground and shot again at the Plaintiff. Martin did not retreat and did not attempt to use less than lethal force such as a taser. Mr. Martin stated that he just reacted and shot the Plaintiff with his handgun, then came back around the front of the armored car to shoot Plaintiff again as he was lying on the ground.
Okay, sounds pretty straightforward. Slanted toward Green’s perspective, with representations of things that may or may not have been true, but it doesn’t sound impossible. (Though I have to wonder if Green was capable of remembering that he was screaming about not having a gun if he wasn’t in his right mind.) But its statement of the interaction is pretty clear, and, as I said above, “Someone hits an armored car driver with pepper spray, he’s got to be worried about what comes next.”
But it’s a lawsuit, so he must be blaming someone. And so here’s paragraph seven.
At no time did the Plaintiff say anything threatening to Martin. The only thing Plaintiff said to Martin was something along the lines of “how was he doing” . Plaintiff never asked for money, tried to take any money, or took any actions that caused Martin to fear that his life was in danger or that he was being robbed. The Plaintiff never represented to Martin that he had any weapon other than the pepper spray. After Plaintiff pepper sprayed Martin, the Plaintiff made no movements or threats towards Martin, in fact the Plaintiff turned and was in the process of leaving when he was shot by Martin.
Sorry, Chad, but my sympathy is completely gone.
Green never asked for or took money — he just pepper-sprayed someone. He didn’t say that he had a weapon — other than the pepper spray he had just used on an armored car driver. He made no movements or threats — because he had already done that, and then been shot.
So he went after Loomis’s deep pockets.
How did he make his case that Loomis was responsible for all this?
Paragraphs nine and fourteen.
Based upon information and belief, Loomis did not provide Martin with less than lethal options, failed to properly train its employees in the proper amount of force that could lawfully be used, and how to properly respond to situations similar to the one that forms the basis of this suit.
Loomis and Martin breached its duty of ordinary care when it failed to properly train its employees on the proper use of deadly force and by not providing less than lethal options and/or training for its employees. Martin breached his duty of care by immediately firing upon the unarmed Plaintiff and again once the Plaintiff was on the ground. Martin breached his duty of care by the use of excessive force causing damage to the Plaintiff. Loomis also breached its duty by failing to train, oversee, supervise and otherwise equip its employees and agents how to properly use less than lethal force, including failing to train employees and agents on existing safety policies, protocols, and procedures regarding all forms of force.
Those paragraphs make me tired. Not from the legalese — from the sheer chutzpah. Chad Green is the kid who murders his parents and pleads for mercy from the court because he’s an orphan.
Fortunately, that’s the way the court saw it, too. Here’s the summary dismissal from the judge.
It’s only two pages, but here’s the good stuff. “Defendant” is Loomis; “Defendant’s employee” is Martin; “Plaintiff” is still Green.
Defendant’s employee’s use of deadly physical force was justified pursuant to Ark. Code Ann. § 5-2-607, and he is therefore immune from civil action pursuant to Ark. Code Ann. § 16-120-302.
Because Defendant’s employee is immune from civil action, Defendant cannot be held vicariously liable for the claims asserted in Plaintiff’s Complaint.
Accordingly, there are no genuine issues of material fact as to any claim, and Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment is hereby GRANTED in its entirety.
Basically, the judge told Green that Martin was justified, and he should get stuffed.
Sources
Tons of sources here, many of them primary. I won’t repeat those already embedded.
Primary
The original police report for this incident is available as a PDF.
If you really want to geek out, the documents from the Green/Loomis case can be found at the exceptionally awesome ARCourts.gov site.
At a different part of the site, you can find documentation of Green’s suspension, but here it is for your convenience.
News
Fox San Antonio, KARK (twice), and Arkansas Times all covered the incident. Here’s KATV’s broadcast.
The Arkansas Democrat Gazette covered this with two articles that gave important details (unfortunately paywalled).
Arkansas Business did a pretty deep dive on the lawsuit. (They were less opinionated than I was.)
Specialist media
Another specialist who isn’t 2A or conservative: Above the Law, where the inimitable Staci Zaretsky covered this law-adjacent article. (I have fond memories of Staci breaking the West Orange Cease-and-Desist letter — over a decade ago? Wow.)
Interestingly, I didn’t see any 2A coverage of this incident. It doesn’t mean it’s not out there — I imagine that it is — just that I couldn’t find it.
Well, I'm sorry the guy has this illness, and he certainly paid for his action in pepper-spraying the driver so I don't think he needed any further sanctions, but none of that says that the driver was in any way in the wrong -- how was he supposed to know, and what difference would it make? If the guy wasn't in his right mind, he might have gone ahead and tried to rob the truck or do worse to the driver than he'd already done. This after-the-fact analysis of what people ought to have done -- NOT knowing the facts -- is ridiculous. I am glad that the lawsuit was dismissed right off.