A Charlotte tow truck driver is facing a stack of criminal charges after a wild scene at a Mount Holly gas station, where video shows him trying to tow a car with two women still inside and pushing it out into traffic.
Gas station showdown caught on camera
The incident unfolded at a gas station on Tuckaseege Road in Mount Holly, where video shows driver David Satterfield bumping a vehicle with his truck and shoving it into the roadway before hooking it up and dragging it back toward the pumps. Inside the car, Joyce Bradley and her godmother, Shelby Graham, stayed put as the tow maneuver played out around them.
The footage also shows Satterfield smashing Bradley's phone and deploying mace. Bradley told reporters she was about $1,300 behind on her car payments and had offered to return the vehicle voluntarily instead of going through a repossession. Mount Holly police arrested Satterfield yesterday, and he now faces multiple counts, including two counts of felonious restraint, misdemeanor assault with a deadly weapon, injury to personal property and simple assault, along with a Gaston County indictment for habitual-felon status, as reported by WBTV.
State crackdown and a long trail of complaints
The arrest did not come out of nowhere. It follows years of complaints about Satterfield's towing tactics and a civil case brought by state prosecutors. Earlier this year, the N.C. Department of Justice secured a consent judgment that ordered roughly $30,000 in restitution and imposed operational limits on Satterfield and his companies, according to The Charlotte Observer.
Local coverage has detailed accusations ranging from price gouging to racially targeted tows. WSOC chronicled the pattern of grievances, and Hoodline highlighted the earlier court action as a landmark bias judgment that put Satterfield's operations under a legal microscope.
Felony heat and what comes next
Gaston County prosecutors have indicted Satterfield as a habitual felon, a status that prosecutors say carries a minimum four-year prison term if he is convicted on a felony, and the N.C. Attorney General's office says it is reviewing the Mount Holly incident, according to WBTV.
Bradley and Graham say they want a fast and firm response from the system. “I’m hoping that the book gets thrown at him. I trust the attorney general,” Bradley told reporters. Satterfield has previously denied wrongdoing in civil cases, and now it will fall to criminal courts to decide whether the years-long trail of complaints will translate into convictions or tougher penalties.
