UAMS administrator with NWA ties shot and killed in robbery
Posted on Friday, December 19, 2008
LITTLE ROCK - A robber in Little Rock shot and killed a University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences administrator who recently taught radiologic imaging classes at Fayetteville's UAMS-operated health education center.
Joseph Bittengle, 50, director of the UAMS Division of Radiologic Imaging Services, died at Baptist Health Medical Center in Little Rock.
"He was just an outstanding gentleman, a fine physician and instructor and a fine asset to the radiologic imaging department of UAMS," said B.J. Roberts, associate director of the Area Health Education Center at 2907 E. Joyce Blvd. in Fayetteville.
Bittengle lived and worked in Little Rock but came to Fayetteville last spring to fill in after the local education center lost its instructor. He also at other times taught imaging classes in Fayetteville via videoconferencing.
UAMS Chancellor I. Dodd Wilson infor med UAMS staffers of Bittengle's death through an e-mail sent Thursday afternoon.
On Thursday, just after 3:30 a.m., a man was unloading his car at his apartment at 1221 Reservoir Road when another man in a puffy black coat, black jeans and a black scarf pointed a black semiautomatic handgun at him and said, "Come out your pockets," according to a Little Rock police report.
The man handed over an iPod Touch before the gunman ordered him back inside his apartment and shot him in his left hand before running away.
As the gunman ran, he came across Bittengle and his 71-year-old mother. The gunman pointed his handgun at the woman and demanded her purse, according to a second police report. The woman handed over the purse, according to the report, and the gunman shot Bittengle in the stomach.
"What we have looks like someone who may just have decided to go around shooting and robbing people," police spokesman Lt. Terry Hastings said. "We'd like to get him in custody as soon as possible, but first we have to figure out who he is."
The man is suspected in three robberies, all along Reservoir Road. The first occurred Monday morning.
In each case, a gunman robbed at least one person in a Reservoir Road apartment complex seemingly smoothly and then would fire one shot and wound a robbery victim while running away.
Jacob Quinn Sanders, a Little Rock reporter with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, contributed information for this story.
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