Posted on 12/18/2025 7:41:03 AM PST by lowbridge
A tow-truck driver in Florida is facing felony charges after being accused of towing a car that had a little girl inside.
The incident was caught on surveillance video.
The car’s owner told police he was inside a restaurant in Sunrise, Florida, for only two minutes before the tow truck came and took his car and he ran out of the business to try and stop the truck’s driver.
The car was in a fire zone where there were no parking signs, WPLG reported.
The video shows the owner of the car running to the tow truck driver, telling him to stop because his 4-year-old daughter was still in his vehicle.
A witness was heard saying, “His kid in there,” WTVJ reported.
The driver did not stop. Police said in their report that the child fell from the car. Police said she opened the car door, according to WPLG. Her father ran into traffic to save her.
The tow truck’s driver, Sergio Suarez, was arrested on charges of child neglect without great bodily harm.
“This one stood out to me; he towed a vehicle allegedly without checking whether or not there was anyone in the vehicle, and there was a child in the vehicle, who then had to jump out of the vehicle in the middle of the road,” Judge Corey Friedman said in court, according to WFOR.
Police called the towing company and requested that Suarez return the car to the scene.
“He dropped the vehicle away from officers and attempted to leave the scene again,” police said in their report, according to WPLG. They stopped him in the shopping plaza moments later.
(Excerpt) Read more at actionnewsjax.com ...
hardly with todays hooks less than minute
Yep.
Obviously.
You can find videos on YT of repo men hooking a car and leaving in under a minute.
Good to know.
Once a tow truck is hooked up to the car, it is very difficult to get them to unhook it.
I had an experience with a Connecticut State Trooper once...my wife and I were driving up 95 North near Bridgeport, middle of a workday, no breakdown lane, elevated highway, traffic was bumper to bumper doing about 70mph.
I was driving my wife’s 1985 Toyota Corolla, and had all my attention on the road in front of me. All of a sudden, the car in front of me swerved, and before I could even open my mouth to utter an oath, we ran over a 4x4 post and a cinderblock just sitting in the middle of the highway.
I smashed my head on the roof of the car (even though I was belted in) and the car began to vibrate violently. I had blown the left front and the left rear tire in this thick, 70mph scrum of cars.
Needless to say, I managed to get into the right lane, but there was no breakdown. Worse, there was a high retaining wall that limited both my visibility back and those cars in the right lane coming around it could not see me until they were right on me.
Trying to steer that car was like trying to hold onto a panicked cat, and I wasn’t even looking at the road in front of me. My eyes were glued to my rear-view mirror seeing an 18 wheeler come bearing down on me at twice my speed while cars were swerving to avoid me.
My wife, who was looking at my face as my eyes were glued to the mirror kept asking “What’s wrong? What is it?”
Thankfully, we came to a ramp, took it, and immediately pulled onto the grass median at the top of the ramp as we exited and stopped the car.
Fortunately (and most suspiciously) there was an auto tire place within a few hundred yards of the bottom of the exit, so my wife and I walked there, and they agreed to send a truck up to get the car. Funny that. How convenient to have a tire place right within view of where there was some “random” debris in the road. Not that I am accusing them of drumming up business or anything like that...
Anyway, while we waited, I decided to go back to the car to get something out of it. When I walked back up to the car, there was a Connecticut State Trooper vehicle there and a tow truck hooking up to the car! This was probably less than fifteen minutes after my wife and I had left the car!
I ran up, and there was this big, black state trooper there. I said “Whoa! I have a truck coming for this right now! You can’t take this car!”
He said: “Sorry sir, once it is hooked up, we can’t unhook it” or something like that.
I began saying things like “NO F******* WAY YOU ARE TAKING THIS CAR! I AM GOING TO LAY DOWN IN FRONT OF IT AND YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO RUN MY G********* ASS OVER TO TAKE IT!” (and began walking over to lay down between the car and the tow truck)
The trooper put up his hand and said in a loud voice: “SIR. WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE.”
And I said: “THERE IS NO WAY YOU ARE TAKING THIS CAR!” (still trying to get around him while he kept moving to stand in my way)
After another minute of me having a hissy fit, the other truck showed up, and the trooper told the guy to unhook the car.
If I had arrived back at the car a minute or two later, it would have been gone and I would have had no idea what to do or where it would have gone!
In the case of this tow truck driver, any normal tow driver would have checked the car for passengers first, and any sane person would say “Get your child out of the car” once informed. And yes, the guy shouldn’t have left his car there.
I wondered the same thing you did-that the driver did not understand English, and it was just another a-hole American screaming at him because he was angry about having his car towed.
what a total shit of a website, never did find the supposed video.
And here I thought someone took parking in fire lanes seriously (I wish they would).
If I were the owner of the towing company I would fire that guy immediately, not just out of basic common sense and human decency, but also to protect myself from the massive liability an idiot like that could end up bringing down on me.
I suppose it will come down to what did the tow truck driver comprehend out of what he was told...he might not understood a word of it. Mind you in Florida, it is quite likely he was being yelled at in his own language. Regardless, the tow truck driver can’t be responsible for what was all in the car....
There was this case last month near Toronto where a body of a crash victim was found in a wreck that had been towed to an impound lot......
Any tow driver who doesnt check the vehicle for occupants ought to be fired and barred from ever operating any vehicle.
???
He absolutely is. It's reckless endangerment and possibly kidnapping. The child jumped out to escape kidnapping.
And after any fines and potential prison time, no company is going to hire him to drive for them.
You beat me to it. The tow truck driver is a jerk. But WTH was dad thinking leaving four-year-old kid in car alone???
I can't believe it would matter if the four-year-old was saying something the tow-truck driver didn't understand.
The fact that a four-year-old was in the car saying anything should have been enough of a deterrence to towing the car.
He was probably stalking the area, knowing that it wouldnt be long before someone would drive up and illegally park in the fire zone.
Lots of eateries and supermarkets near me have a fire zone right in front of it, yet many is the time i see people obnoxiously park in that fire zone while going inside to get their food and even though there are many available parking spaces nearby.
In the case of supermarkets, some people park in the fire zone, drop off a passenger who goes inside to do their shopping while the driver sits in the car, staying parked in the fire zone for hours. I guess they think its ok as long as theyre sitting in the car (some dont sit in their car and leave their car unattended).
It is common to see company delivery vehicles parked in the fire lane in front of many businesses.UPS,Fedex,Amazon...and store employees will tell you to pull up there while large items are brought out.
Dont act like fire lanes are inviolate sacred spaces. Too many people have no sense of proportion.
“The guy was probably 3 months delinquent in his car payments - the tow truck driver had every right to get the car.”
RTA!
Bad guess
What most towers do is they go to another street lower the tow mechanism back up hook the car up without getting out and driving off and finish the hook up elsewhere
Sounds much longer than ten minutes.
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