“Repo Man” Arrested After Alleged Wrongful Repossession

He Had the Wrong Ford Explorer. The Right One Was Nearly 100 Miles Away—and in Another State.

Ellensburg, WA – September 29, 2026 – John Michael Crippen allegedly showed up late Wednesday night to repossess a Ford Explorer. He found one. It just wasn’t the one he was looking for.

According to police, Crippen approached an Ellensburg woman shortly after she returned home with groceries and told her that her 2013 Ford Explorer was being repossessed.

The woman had recently purchased the SUV from a neighbor and apparently had no connection to the debt Crippen was attempting to collect.

What followed turned a wrong-car recovery into an attempted robbery case.

According to reporting by the Daily Record, Crippen reportedly could not initially produce paperwork showing that he was employed to repossess vehicles.

When he allegedly attempted to remove the woman’s keys from the ignition, she covered them with her hand. Crippen then allegedly grabbed her hand hard enough to cause pain.

The confrontation ended when a neighbor emerged with a handgun and pointed it at Crippen.

Crippen left.

Police later found him at a Jacksons convenience store in Ellensburg, but that’s when the situation became even stranger. The Explorer Crippen had apparently been sent to recover was a 2012 model.

The woman’s was a 2013.

Crippen reportedly had no photograph of the collateral, no contract, no license plate number and no vehicle identification number readily available.

And according to police, less than an hour before the confrontation, the GPS location of the Explorer he was actually looking for placed it on a street in Milton-Freewater, Oregon.

The car he was supposed to repossess wasn’t even in Washington.

Crippen reportedly showed an officer an “informational sheet” he had been using to locate the vehicle and told police that his employer installs GPS trackers in vehicles it sells.

He was arrested on suspicion of attempted second-degree robbery and booked into the Kittitas County Jail shortly before 2 a.m. September 25. County jail records identify him as a 26-year-old Yakima resident and show that he was released later that afternoon.

His arraignment is scheduled for October 1.

Crippen is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Who Gets Called a “Repo Man”?

This is where the story becomes particularly annoying to the professional repossession industry. The original reporting repeatedly refers to Crippen as a “repo man.”

Maybe he is. But we’ve found no evidence connecting Crippen with an established professional repossession agency, and one statement he allegedly made to police raises another possibility.

Crippen reportedly said his employer installed GPS trackers in the vehicles it sells.

Pump the brakes! That’s more than a big red flag.

That could suggest Crippen worked directly for a dealership or other vehicle seller recovering its own collateral rather than for a professional third-party recovery agency. Washington law recognizes such a distinction, exempting secured creditors repossessing their own collateral from requirements imposed under the state’s private-investigator statute.

CURepossession has not been able to identify Crippen’s employer, so we don’t know.

He may have been a professional recovery agent. Or he may simply have been a man sent by his employer to repo a car.

Either way, the alleged conduct is difficult to reconcile with professional collateral recovery.

According to the probable cause allegations, Crippen approached an occupied vehicle without a photograph, license plate number or VIN readily available and attempted to take possession of a 2013 Explorer when the vehicle being sought was apparently a 2012 Explorer.

What’s in a Name?

To the public and frequently the press, almost anyone sent to take back a vehicle becomes a “repo man.”

Whether that person is a trained professional recovery agent, dealership employee, tow operator or creditor employee rarely makes it into the headline. But the reputation created by their conduct frequently lands in the same place.

They simply see another “repo man.”

Wielding a hammer doesn’t make someone a professional carpenter.

Painting your living room doesn’t make you a professional painter.

That is precisely why the distinction between a repossessor and a person performing a repossession matters to this industry.

We still don’t know exactly what John Michael Crippen’s job was. Subsequent court proceedings may establish that he really was employed as a professional recovery agent. If so, the allegations raise serious questions about his training and conduct.

But if he was simply an employee sent out to retrieve his employer’s collateral, then the professional repossession industry may once again find itself sharing a reputation with someone who was never part of it.

There is a big difference between a person being sent to repo a car and being a professional recovery agent.

Unfortunately, the public rarely gets to see that difference in the headline.