Brooklyn Man Steals Truck From The Guy Towing His Vehicle For Being Illegally Parked — Then Totals It
What would have been a simple parking ticket and impound is now likely to result in multiple criminal charges.
Jonathan Reynaga | Pexels Sometimes, it's simply human nature to overreact to a distressing situation and act out in the heat of the moment. We've all been there.
But it's also a fact of human nature that these split-second overreactions we think will save our hides often make things way worse than if we'd just sat down, shut our mouths, and dealt with the consequences.
There is perhaps no greater example of this than a man's wildly viral meltdown while having his car towed over the weekend.
Police are searching for a Brooklyn man who stole a tow truck that was removing his vehicle.
If you were scrolling social media a lot this past weekend, you might have seen how insanely sideways this vehicle towing went. It all went down on September 6, 2024, in the Sunset Park section of Brooklyn near 53rd Street and Second Avenue when a tow truck arrived to remove a man's Chevy pickup.
Many initially assumed it was a repossession, but it was later revealed the truck was illegally parked and blocking the entrance to a business.
As the tow truck driver was loading the pickup onto his rig, the pickup's owner showed up and began verbally and physically assaulting him, hurling profanities and insisting the tow truck driver "get the [expletive] away from my truck."
The man then drove off with the tow truck, damaging at least 12 other cars along the way.
Multiple angles of the altercation quickly appeared online, which showed the owner throwing punches and hitting the tow truck driver with his truck door before climbing into the tow truck and driving off as bystanders gasped in shock.
But it's everything that happened after he commandeered the tow truck that's perhaps most shocking.
The tow truck driver had not yet finished properly loading and securing the man's pick-up when the owner confronted and assaulted him. This, likely combined with the man's lack of knowledge of how to drive a tow truck, resulted in his pick-up careening back and forth across the street with its door still open, bashing into and side-swiping at least 12 cars parked along the curbs as he went.
But that was only the opening act of this drama.
The thief then totaled his own pick-up truck while nearly colliding head-on with a city bus before fleeing on foot.
By far, the best view of this astonishing incident is from the surveillance footage taken by the tow truck driver's onboard security camera, which is mounted on the back of the truck. Presumably this camera is to document the process of the towing for insurance purposes, should an owner claim damages occurred.
In this case, it came in really handy for documenting just how dramatic and nearly tragic this incident was. As the thief rounded the corner of an adjacent street, his giant pick-up could be seen detaching from the tow truck and rolling over in the street in front of a city bus, which appeared to nearly run into it head-on.
Suffice it to say, the pick-up is likely totaled — other videos from the scene show the body and front end badly damaged and multiple airbags deployed.
The tow truck's onboard footage also shows how the incident ended, with the thief continuing to drive for several blocks before abandoning the tow truck in the middle of the road near 55th Street and Third Avenue and fleeing on foot. Police are now actively searching for him.
When found, the man is likely to face multiple serious criminal charges as well as jail time.
To say that it's something close to a miracle that this incident didn't end in tragedy is a wild understatement. According to local news reports, two people were injured in the process of this man's insane overreaction to his car being towed.
Both the tow truck driver and an elderly man inside one of the cars into which the thief bashed his pick-up were injured, according to local media. Authorities say the injuries were thankfully minor in both cases, with the driver refusing treatment and the elderly man being taken to a local ER in stable condition.
Local media also reported that the man collided head-on with the city bus, though the footage from the surveillance camera does not appear to clearly show this.
Regardless, what would have been a simple parking ticket and impound fee is now likely to result in multiple criminal charges once he's apprehended. The incident likely fits New York's definition of multiple property crimes including grand larceny and grand theft auto, both felonies in the state.
The man is also likely to be charged with fleeing the scene of an accident, assault, and reckless endangerment, among other crimes. In short, he is probably going to jail for a very, very long time. Over a parking ticket. There's perhaps never been a better case made for keeping your cool in stressful situations.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice, and human interest topics.