On June 29 at 5:24 a.m. the Fort Smith Police responded to a call about a hit and run incident that occurred on May Avenue that injured one man, destroyed his vehicle and caused extensive damage to two other vehicles belonging to a Fort Smith couple.
Darla Lackey, who runs a charity in Fort Smith called Pay It Forward and was the victim of the two vehicles that suffered more than $4000 in damage, realized that the FSPD might not be putting much priority on the case, so she leapt to action. With the help of her husband, video from a local business, some good old fashioned detective work and a lot of "stakeouts" she identified the hit-and-run driver.
The police didn't even say thanks before they basically shrugged their shoulders and did absolutely nothing.
Lackey and her husband Craig, as well as the elderly man who was injured and had his vehicle destroyed, are basically feces out of fortune.
"The police came out and took the report," said Lackey. "They didn't even bother to pick up the damaged parts from the hit-and-run vehicle."
Because of a snafu in her insurance coverage, neither vehicle was covered in a hit-and-run scenario. Since the suspect was not issued a citation, the Lackey's don't hold out much hope by pursuing the case as a civil matter.
"I did all the work," said Lackey. "I gave them the case all tied up with a big, bright bow. And nothing..."
Lackey's pursuit of the suspect reads like something out of a Sherlock Holmes novel.
"The first thing was we found was part of a taillight," said Lackey. "My husband is an experienced car man and he recognized the broken lens as being from a 20006 to 2018 pick-up truck."
The also found a lug nut cover and a plastic bumper at the scene.
Lackey also got surveillance video from a nearby business and the time stamp showed a Ford F-250 pick-up truck passing by within a few minutes of the wreck. She then went on a hunt for a needle in a hay stack...and found one.
"I went to or called every single part store in the area inquiring as if anyone had ordered that particular taillight lens, and I came up empty for weeks," said Lackey. "On a whim I stopped in one last store and the manager told me that the part had been sold and picked-up in another store in their chain the same day our vehicles were hit. It was the only one sold in the region for the past several weeks."
She was also told the part was delivered to a "body shop" on North 47th Street that turned out to be a duplex that, apparently, does some "backyard" (and probably illegal) auto body repair. She was also provided with the phone number of the party who picked up the part at the parts store.
The name listed on the invoice was Hispanic and a cursory "stakeout" of the address did not reveal the truck in question, but it did draw a lot of attention.
"A friend of mine went over there and found the address, took a picture and texted it to me," said Lackey. "While he was parked across the street, a man and two women came out and stared him down for about five minutes."
Lackey was also contacted by a video analyst who is helping her pro bono in an effort to identify the truck.
Lackey posted information on social media offering a $500 reward for information on the truck. She got a call one night that the truck might be at a bar on Grand Avenue and was able to follow it to a residence on Tilles Avenue. Background information on the resident of the Tilles Avenue address, who also had a Hispanic name, showed he was was a residential roofer. And it just so happened that there was roofing tar residue on some of the damaged parts left at the scene.
"I felt like we were getting real close," said Lackey. "Then I got the information on the phone number."
The phone number of the person who picked up the taillight checked to yet a third man with a Hispanic name. From there, Lackey was able to find a home address on North 32nd Street and now armed with that persons name discovered he was also a roofer. Who worked for the same company as the person on Tilles Avenue.
But the truck was nowhere to be seen.
"I watched the home for a few weeks and on July 23 a few weeks after accident, the truck was parked in the back yard," said Lackey, who took pictures of the truck and the license plates. "I was excited because I felt finally the police would get the VIN number and or driver information"
A police offer came out and looked at the pictures and then went to the North 32nd address and nothing was done other than the officer saying it has a fake tag on the truck, and that he would let the original officer know and they would "look again" the next day."
The truck was moved and hidden again that night.According to Lackey, there is no record of any information being taken by the police department truck after they responded to the call on July 23.
The police department has the lug nut cover and it clearly matched up. The front fender well is messed up in the pics and the Lackey's original photographs show a missing lug nut. The plastic front bumper that was left in the yard has been replaced with a chrome bumper that did not come installed on that model truck.
The police say they can't do anything because they didn't see anything, according to Lackey.
'It's all circumstantial evidence?" said Lackey. "People have gone to prison for murder on less evidence."
Two other details: Lackey got a text from the wife of the "body shop" owner asking why she had tried to call her husband. She never tried to contact the man. And a relative of the apparent driver in the incident has been stalking her on Facebook since she started posting about her progress in tracking down the truck.
While none of these excuses are valid, there are a number of reasons why someone might commit a hit-and-run.
The most common reasons include:
The driver was uninsured.
A pedestrian or bicyclist was hit.
The driver did not have a valid driver’s license.
The driver was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the crash.
The motorist was already in legal trouble.
Lackey figures two or three of the above may apply.
Because committing a hit-and-run is a crime, the guilty party could face serious consequences under normal circumstances if they’re located.
Common consequences include fines, loss of driving privileges, and misdemeanor or felony charges.
In Arkansas, a hit-and-run is considered a Class D felony if the accident resulted in injury, death, or property damage. With a Class D felony, the guilty party could be looking at the revocation of their driver’s license, possible fines of up to $10,000, and no more than six years in prison.
Seemingly, all Lackey is going to get for her trouble is two wrecked vehicles, a lot of personal expense and the satisfaction of knowing someone in Fort Smith is doing the legwork it takes in an investigation.
"We're going to be out over $4700 in repairs," said Lackey. "And that's time and resources that we have lost for feeding people through Pay It Forward."
"It just doesn't seem right," said Lackey. "The truck that was damaged was the charities truck and I think that's what bothers me most of all."
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