A man charged in a deadly shooting in Little Rock was already being watched by the state.

His name is Catalin Ruben Calin. He is 35. He lives in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Court records show he was in a monitoring program run by a court. He was put in it after an insanity diagnosis. That means doctors found he had a serious mental illness.

The records also show he had been a ward of the state for most of the past 10 years. A ward of the state is a person the state has to care for and keep track of.

That is the heart of this story. A man the state was watching is now charged with murder.

Here is what police said about the shooting.

It happened on Friday, August 21. The time was about 2:15 in the morning.

Officers went to a Circle K store in Little Rock. The address is 6420 S. University Ave.

They found two men. Both had been shot.

Medics took both men to hospitals. One of the men died a short time later.

Officers blocked off the area. Then they called homicide detectives.

Little Rock police arrested Calin the same day. Police said he did not fight the arrest.

He is charged with capital murder. In Arkansas, that charge can mean the death penalty. It can also mean life in prison with no parole.

He is also charged with first-degree battery. That is a felony charge for badly hurting someone.

A court paper in the case adds one detail. The man who lived told police the shooter was a coworker.

Police have not put out the name of the man who died. So El Tejano is not naming him. His age is not public either.

Now the harder question. What kind of watch was Calin under?

This part matters. Parole is not probation. Probation is not an ankle monitor. And none of those are the same as a court program for people with a mental illness.

Court records point to the last one. They say he was in a court-run monitoring program tied to an insanity diagnosis.

Arkansas has a law for that. It is in the state code at 5-2-315.

Under that law, a judge sets the rules for the person. The person has to follow a care plan. That can mean taking medicine. It can also mean therapy or drug tests.

The law names a compliance monitor. That is the person who checks up on them.

The doctor or clinic has to send written proof every 90 days. A judge can ask for it more often than that.

The rules can last up to five years.

If a person breaks the rules, they can be picked up. Then a judge decides what to do. The judge can send them back to a locked state facility.

The test in the law is short. Is the person still a big risk to hurt someone?

A lot is still not public in this case.

We do not know what Calin was first charged with. We do not know the date a judge put him under the state. We do not know when he was let back out.

We do not know the name of his compliance monitor. We do not know if anyone ever reported him for breaking a rule.

And we do not know if anyone acted on a report like that.

The state has not made a public statement about how Calin was being watched. No state review of his case has been announced.

None of that means the state did something wrong. The record does not show that. It shows a man under state watch who is now charged with a killing.

Those are two different things. El Tejano will report the first one and let readers hold on to the second.

Everyone is presumed innocent until proved otherwise.