Walter Taylor, Staff Writer

White Lake Police Chief Bruce Smith cannot understand all of the calls he got from media outlets because of a disturbance last Sunday at the FFA camp.

“It was only misdemeanor charges and no one got hurt that bad,” he said. “Basically there was nothing to it. I think the FFA will do a better job of screening who uses the camp from now on.”

The incident happened during a research project from the Minnesota State University, Mankato, when instructor James Barnett led a team of six students in the sociology and corrections department for interviews with a group of 18 19-24 year-old-men with criminal histories. These men were part of the Wilmington Housing Authority’s Youth Build program. As part of a research program the Minnesota students were also to serve as youth mentors

Around midnight a 22-year-old Youth Build participant, Jarvis Demetrious Smith of 507 Mosley Street, Wilmington, began a rampage by holding his student mentor hostage for almost an hour, while damaging the room and destroying a laptop computer in the process. The man then jumped from a window and ran to a nearby house, according to Sgt. Terry Fell of the White Lake Police Department, who was the first officer on the scene. Fell said the man walked up to him cursing and demanding to go to jail.

That escalated into a “four to five minute fight,” according to Fell.

“It was a small isolated incident that got blown out of proportion,” Fell said.

Fell handcuffed the man, charged him with assault on a government official, resisting arrest, false imprisonment, disorderly conduct, and marijuana possession, then jailed him under a $4,500 bond with a court date set for Sept. 25. As of Thursday morning Smith remained in the Bladen County Jail.

The University of Minnesota terminated the research project after the incident.