HIT-AND-RUN? Republican Rep. Mark Biviano

  • HIT-AND-RUN? Republican Rep. Mark Biviano

Interesting story in Democrat-Gazette today (pay wall) about a report of a hit-and-run accident last month involving Tea Party favorite Mark Biviano, a Searcy state representative. He’s sure he exchanged insurance info before motoring off. The momma whose Toyota was smacked by his truck following a dance event for kids at the convention center (Biviano was making a 10:30 p.m. departure from the Capital Hotel) says he did no such a thing. Maybe Biviano is talking about the conversation he had with the woman’s husband about insurance a couple of days after the accident, after they’d done a little sleuthing on Biviano’s legislative license plate and ran down the conservative Republican themselves.

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The Little Rock Police Department’s excuse-making on failure to follow up on a timely report of the accident, made moments after it occurred, leaves a lot to be desired. “Thousands” of hit and run reports? Difficulty in running down legislative license plate numbers (a process that takes minutes by phone)? No sign of followup activity after more than a month? It was, unfortunately, another shred of evidence to add to the pile that there are certain types of criminal incidents — garden variety thefts are another — the LRPD just isn’t much interested in fooling with. They are undermanned and overworked, but still …. You can’t run down the owner of House of Representatives 65 to get his side of a hit-and-run complaint in 40 days?

UPDATE: The accident occurred April 9. A consultation of my datebook shows that was the night of a bourbon-and-bacon dinner at Ashley’s in the Capital Hotel. The five-course meal ran from 7 to 10 p.m., featuring Benton’s bacon and Pappy Van Winkle’s bourbon in every course. The video below was shot at the dinner. See anyone familiar?

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Bourbon and Bacon 2011 from Capital Hotel on Vimeo.

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