HAZARD – A Perry County man is being held on a $75,000 bond for allegedly threatening employees at the Hazard Clinic.
James E. North, 36, of Krypton was arrested by the Hazard Police, in conjunction with the Kentucky State Police, on March 30. Police say an employee from Hazard Clinic called North to request information about prescriptions he received from Dr. Mitchell Wicker. Upon this request, North allegedly said if he had to come to the doctor’s office “some kind of shit is going to go down.”
The employee called Hazard Police and a warrant for North’s arrest was obtained.
An officer remained at the Hazard Clinic, where Dr. Wicker’s office is located, until North was taken into custody by the Kentucky State Police.
Troopers Joey King and Ronnie Long located North at his residence in Krypton and transported him to Hazard where he was charged with third-degree terroristic threatening.
“We’ve always had a policy that if any individual should threaten one of our employees or even one of our patients that are here, we notify the appropriate people,” Wicker said.
He said the office has been threatened before, but that these incidences are rare – it’s only happened half a dozen times over the course of the 30 years the clinic has been open.
However, Wicker said they must remain consistent in reporting such incidents to police. Making a threat about the clinic, the employees or the patients at Hazard Clinic is taken very seriously by employees, he said.
“We consider them (the patients) our family, and we wouldn’t hesitate to call the authorities on someone that threatened our families,” Wicker said. “So by extension, we don’t tolerate that for our patients, employees or anybody else that happens to be here and our privilege to serve.”
Since the shooting at the Leatherwood/Blackey Clinic in December that resulted in the death of Dr. Dennis Sandlin, Hazard Police Chief Ronnie Bryant said there is a no tolerance policy about threats made against a doctor or his/her office and/or employees.
“We take it real seriously,” Bryant said. He said North most likely was dissatisfied about his treatment, and lashed out in anger, and that he didn’t really mean what he said.
“This charge (terroristic threatening) is fairly minor, but this situation is completely different,” Bryant said.
He added that threatening a doctor’s office after the incident at the Leatherwood/Blackey Clinic was a foolish and serious thing to do.
Dr. Wicker’s office released a statement saying that the office was going to let law enforcement handle this case the best way they saw fit, and that they had to be “careful in this day and age.”
North is being held at the Kentucky River Regional Jail on a $75,000 bond. If he is able to make bond, he will be under home incarceration.
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