LR mayor candidate Steve Landers admits he recently left loaded gun in a restaurant bathroom

For a candidate campaigning largely on the gun crimes roiling our capital city, leaving a loaded weapon behind in a busy restaurant bathroom is a remarkable gaffe. But it's one Little Rock mayoral candidate Steve Landers is owning up to.

Rumors about Landers leaving his gun in the bathroom at The Root restaurant on Main Street earlier this summer have been making the rounds for weeks. On Monday evening, anonymous Twitter user @LRProud501 forced the issue, posting a tweet to make the accusation public and calling on Landers to explain himself.

Steve Landers MUST answer for his irresponsible actions. Leaving a loaded gun in the bathroom of The Root Cafe could have gotten someone KILLED.

— Little Rock Proud 🃏 (@LRproud501) August 15, 2022

A records search with the Little Rock Police Tuesday morning produced an incident report confirming a gun had been left in the bathroom at The Root at 1500 Main St. on May 27. The report did not include the gun owner's name.

But before we called him to ask about the report, Landers was already reaching out to Arkansas Times editor Max Brantley to come clean.

Landers confirmed the incident, saying he realized he’d forgotten his handgun a few minutes after he left the restaurant. "I made a mistake," he said.

The founder of a successful chain of car dealerships, Landers said he has a concealed carry license and has always carried a concealed weapon because he worked odd hours and sometimes needed to move money around. Landers said his practice is to remove the gun from its holster when he uses public bathrooms, but that he forgot to retrieve the gun this time.

The incident report from Little Rock Police indicates the gun was a "DIAMON BLK DB380 SEMI-AUTOMATIC PISTOL" and that a magazine with six bullets was found with it. Landers said he's not certain the specific make and model, but that the gun is a "380." Landers said that while there were bullets in the gun, none of them were chambered.

"It had ammunition in it but there was not one chambered in the gun," he said.

Landers said he was at The Root that day to have breakfast, and he put the gun on the back of the sink when he went into the bathroom, but forgot to retrieve it.

"I called about 5 minutes after I left," he said, but the person he spoke with at The Root said they did not have a gun. Landers said that later that day, he was able to get the weapon back from Little Rock Police after showing proof of ownership.

Jack Sundell, who owns The Root with his wife Corri, confirmed the incident by email:

Around 9:00 am on the morning of Friday, May 27th, 2022, a Root Cafe staff member found a loaded firearm on the handwashing sink of the inside restroom at the Root Cafe. Security camera footage showed Steve Landers as the last person to use that restroom before the unattended firearm was discovered.

Root Cafe management immediately contacted LRPD and gave the loaded gun to the responding officer and also notified the officer of the gun owner's identity.

Landers said the incident was his mistake, and said he was thankful nobody got hurt. He likened the slip-up to you or me forgetting a cellphone.

"I’ve never done that before, but I did it this time," Landers said.

In his campaign for mayor, Landers hammers on rising crime rates as a key issue and criticized opponent Mayor Frank Scott for not doing enough to make Little Rock safer. Landers has repeatedly criticized Scott for his city-funded security detail.

Landers took to social media after violence pushed through the city this past weekend, with at least 15 shootings in a 26-hour period. "The current mayor has created an unsafe environment for everyone in Little Rock. It's time for change in Little Rock," Landers tweeted Monday.

On Tuesday Landers suggested that a story about the weekend crime spree was more worthy of attention than a story about a gun left behind in a public bathroom.

"After 15 people got shot, I would think people would want to know how unsafe our city is," he said.

Asked why he carries a gun now that he's no longer working in the car business, Landers said he visits parts of Little Rock that are simply not safe. "I go to a lot of tough spots on this campaign, a lot of tough areas."

He also said there have been credible threats made against a member of his staff.

"I just don't want to get shot or any of my staff get shot running this campaign," he said.

Despite these concerns, Landers said that if he's elected, he will not use a city-funded security detail. He again criticized the expense of Scott's security staff.

"If every citizen in this city had $700,000 to spend on security, maybe we wouldn't need to carry," he said.

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