White Towing Company Owner In Charlotte Agrees To Pay $30K To Black Workers His Companies Booted During Pandemic

The owner of a towing company in Charlotte, N.C., is finding out the hard way that mixing racism with predatory capitalism can end up costing one more than they gained by, well, basically just being terrible people.

According to the Charlotte News & Observer, in 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the N.C. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against David Jewel Satterfield and his Charlotte-based companies, A1 Towing Solutions Inc. and Automobile Recovery and Parking Enforcement Inc., accusing both companies of scouring majority-Black areas of the city and booting trucks owned by Black drivers, some of whom were just trying to do their jobs providing services to essential workers and people stuck in their homes. This week, N.C. Attorney General Jeff Jackson announced that Satterfield has agreed to pay his victims, who prosecutors said were targeted by their race, $30,000 in restitution for their booted vehicles.

From the News & Observer:

Drivers were delivering food, water and other medical supplies, only to be charged up to $4,000 to release locks placed on their trucks, according to the department.

Jackson alleged that Satterfield violated state price gouging law.

“In some cases, the truck driver presented Satterfield with a written parking permit or parked their truck before he installed signs giving notice that their vehicles would be towed,” according to the release. “But the defendant still towed their truck and charged them excessively high fees to release it.”

Some drivers were called racial epithets and were assaulted as Satterfield tried to tow their trucks, according to the department. The judgment doesn’t say how many victims were involved.

The judgment, reached by the department’s Consumer Protection Division and Civil Rights Unit, is North Carolina’s first in a discriminatory towing case, Jackson said. A Wake County Superior Court judge signed the judgment on Thursday.

Not only did the lawsuit result in Satterfield having to pay out $30,000 to the Black people he took advantage of during a time when people really needed to be working together to get through the pandemic, but the judgment against him resulted in 10 restrictions being placed on him and his companies, including prohibiting them from putting boots on commercial vehicles, or towing vehicles without a property owner’s permission. If Satterfield violates any of these terms, he’ll have to pay the state $110,000, according to the ruling.

It can be costly to be a racist and a generally terrible human being. Act accordingly, good people!

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