Man allegedly fires rifle at officers during Parsons arrest standoff

Deputies in Parsons went to the 400 block of Little Jackson Lane on Monday to serve Robert Weems a Dickinson County warrant, and the arrest attempt allegedly escalated when Weems fired a rifle at officers. The incident unfolded in a neighborhood setting that could have put nearby homes and families at risk, but the information released did not mention any shelter-in-place order or road closure.

The Decatur County Sheriff’s Office said deputies first made contact with Weems at about 12:07 p.m. and tried to talk through the situation safely. The warrant had been issued out of Dickinson County after Weems failed to appear in court on both felony and misdemeanor charges, putting him back on officers’ radar for a custody arrest. During the encounter, Weems reportedly said he did not want to go back to jail and indicated he would have to do something else.

That standoff ended with Weems being booked into the Decatur County Detention Center on three counts of aggravated assault, reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon and evading arrest. Those charges raise the case far beyond a simple warrant pickup and reflect the danger deputies faced once the encounter shifted from a planned arrest to an armed confrontation.

For Decatur County, the episode is a reminder that routine warrant service can become a public-safety emergency in seconds. The call started as a law-enforcement matter tied to missed court appearances in another county, then became a local incident on Little Jackson Lane with officers in close range of an alleged rifle discharge. That is the kind of split-second escalation that tests officer safety, especially when a subject has already signaled resistance to being taken into custody.

The case now moves forward through the local jail and court system with Weems facing the new Decatur County charges tied to the Parsons confrontation. For neighbors nearby, the key question is whether any further court action or official update will spell out more about the discharge, the risk to people in the area and how the arrest was brought under control.