A Ruston man was arrested Wednesday after Lincoln Parish deputies investigated an argument stemming from a property line dispute.
Sheriff’s deputies responded to a U.S. Highway 80 address regarding a call of a disturbance involving a firearm. A man said he heard a heated verbal altercation between his wife and a female neighbor. He joined them in the argument and the neighbor’s husband, Steven Mark Schmitt, 59, came outside with a handgun held behind his back. Schmitt allegedly pulled his hand out from behind his back, brandishing the pistol said something to the effect of “now say something insulting about my wife.”
Schmitt later went to the sheriff’s office to speak with deputies. According to the arrest affidavit, Schmitt admitted arguing with the neighbors but denied having a handgun.
Schmitt was arrested and when he was being escorted to a vehicle for transport to the detention center, he resisted and refused to enter the car. Deputies had to force him into the vehicle as he actively resisted.
Schmitt was booked for aggravated assault with a firearm and resisting an officer.
This information has been provided by a law enforcement agency as public information. Persons named or shown in photographs or video as suspects in a criminal investigation, or arrested and charged with a crime, have not been convicted of any criminal offense and are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
