LR hit-and-run changed to homicide investigation

Little Rock Police are investigating a November pedestrian death as a homicide after reviewing surveillance footage of the incident, a police spokesman said Tuesday afternoon.

Earlina Counts, 52, a homeless woman living in Little Rock, was struck and killed by a vehicle on Nov. 6 at about 11:56 p.m. at 4401 West 12th St., according to information from a Little Rock police incident report and a preliminary fatality report from Arkansas State Police.

Counts was struck by a 2011 Toyota Tundra and again by an unidentified vehicle, the state police report states. The driver of the Tundra fled the scene and was located the next day, though the driver is not identified in the report. It was not explicitly stated that the driver of the second vehicle fled.

Little Rock police responded to the scene but did not initially think anything criminal had occurred, Little Rock police spokesman Mark Edwards said.

However, earlier this year investigators were reviewing footage of the collision and came to believe that there was criminal activity amounting to a homicide charge, Edwards said.

The department does not normally count vehicular deaths amongst the city’s yearly homicides, Edwards acknowledged, but said the criminal activity that investigators witnessed made this incident different.

Edwards could not say what specifically tipped them off to the potential for foul play.

After reviewing the footage, an incident report for a homicide investigation was generated March 3 to provide a case number and make further investigation easier, Edwards said.

The report identifies a 34-year-old Little Rock woman as the suspect and lists a white 2005 Kia Amanti as owned by her. Police intend to bring the woman in for questioning, Edwards said.

This incident report was released by police Tuesday, though it was not clear why it was not released earlier.

The reclassification of the pedestrian death as a homicide will increase the number of homicides last year to 65, Edwards said.