By Billy Davis

Batesville police have charged a Sarah, Miss. woman with hitting a second woman with her car during an argument outside Batesville City Hall last Friday.

Use of the automobile to run down someone is aggravated assault, a felony, said BPD Detective Paul Shivers.

Cowanda Underwood, of Sarah, faces that charge as well as a charge of fleeing from the scene of an accident, also a felony, said Shivers.

The incident happened about 1 p.m. Friday in the south parking lot at city hall.

Police did not identify the victim, who was treated at the scene by Batesville firefighters and MedStat paramedics. She was released Friday from Tri-Lakes, where she was treated for a cut to her head.

Eyewitness Rachel Kizer, who was standing across College Street from city hall, said she watched a car slam a woman against an industrial garbage bin, ending an argument among several people.

Kizer said the driver was a woman “and she deliberately knocked (the second woman) against the bin.”

The large metal bin likely prevented the victim from being completely run over, speculated Kizer, a city employee in the code enforcement office.

The bin is sitting in the parking lot to collect trash from a renovation next door.

A second eyewitness, Cory Austin, said he saw the car “swerve and hit her,” referring to the victim. He attempted to remember the tag number as the car sped away, he said.

Kizer said about four or five people were knotted in an argument in the parking lot, when some of them walked back to a car.

Kizer recalled: “I heard the woman who got run over say, ‘You’re not going with them.’ I saw her throw something —  some black thing — at the windshield. Then they ran her over, and she fell and rolled.”

A black wig, which Underwood said belonged to her, was found in the parking lot at city hall, said BPD Detective Paul Shivers.

Shivers said it was unclear what caused the argument, citing differing stories from the victim and her alleged attacker.