DALLAS — A tow truck driver was arrested on a manslaughter charge in the death of man whose truck he was towing early Sunday morning in Dallas, police said.
The incident happened at about 3:20 a.m. Sunday in the 10000 block of Shoreview Road off east Northwest Highway in northeast Dallas.
Police said officers arrived and found 67-year-old James Smith lying in the parking lot.
Officers learned that Smith’s vehicle was being towed from the parking lot at the location. As it was being towed, he jumped onto the driver’s side of the vehicle, police said. Smith then fell off the vehicle and was run over, according to the release.
Smith was taken to a hospital, where he died.
“He killed him right here,” Smith’s brother Larry Smith told WFAA outside the Dallas Housing Authority apartment they share.
Smith says they both confronted the driver, telling him he was making a mistake. But, according to a Dallas Police arrest affidavit, the tow truck driver told them the “truck is in violation” and continued with the towing process. Larry Smith says his brother told him the vehicle, with paper tags but with the metal plates not yet installed, was registered with the proper parking permits.
The arrest affidavit says James Smith grabbed the tow truck steering wheel to prevent the tow truck driver from driving away. Larry Smith says his brother’s arm became stuck as the window was raised. He says his brother clung to the vehicle as it rounded the north end of the apartment complex and went over a speed bump. Smith fell from the tow truck and was run over. The tow truck driver did not stop to help.
“He ran over him with a tow truck and a car,” Smith’s sister Linda Smith Carswell told WFAA. “He didn’t just kill my brother. He left him there with no regard to life.”
The driver of the tow truck, identified as 25-year-old Roberto Padilla Garcia, was located at the Dallas Auto Pound. Police said he was arrested on a charge of manslaughter and taken to the Dallas County Jail. The Dallas County Sheriff’s Office confirmed to WFAA that he had a $100,000 bond but made bail and bonded out he next day.
“My brother’s life was worth more than all that,” Larry Smith said of the vehicle repossession that he believes was a clerical or computer mistake. “My brother didn’t deserve to die behind a recovery fee.”
“I don’t know what they should do with the driver. But he should be held accountable for leaving James lying there and not offering to render aid,” Linda Smith Carswell said. James Smith was a custodian who worked in Dallas ISD schools for more than 30 years.
The arrest affidavit says Padilla Garcia agreed to go to Dallas Police Headquarters for an interview, but that during a video-recorded interview he requested his attorney and declined to be interviewed at the time.
WFAA has reached out to the tow truck driver but has not received a response.
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