From staff reports
—
A McDonald County bail bondsman pleaded guilty Thursday to a misdemeanor offense in connection with a warning shot that he fired in a mobile home park when a man he was trying to apprehend on a warrant ran from him.
Bryan W. White, 47, of rural Anderson, changed his plea to guilty at a hearing in Jasper County Circuit Court in Joplin when the county prosecutor’s office agreed to reduce a felony charge of unlawful use of a weapon to a misdemeanor.
Associate Circuit Judge Richard Copeland accepted the plea agreement and fined White $500, plus court costs.
White was arrested on the charge by the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department on Jan. 24 at Country Acres Mobile Home Community at Webb City.
A probable-cause affidavit states that he had gone to the trailer park in his capacity as a bondsman for All Out Bail Bonds and attempted to take a man with an outstanding warrant into custody.
When the man fled, White fired a warning shot into the air “with no regard to the safety of others,” in the estimation of the sheriff’s deputy who wrote the probable-cause affidavit in the case.
