Repo or Tow, The Tulsa Murders Expose a Dangerous Confusion

Different Reasons, Same Deadly Result

Two towing company owners are dead in Tulsa, Oklahoma, after what was initially reported as a dispute over a repossessed vehicle. For those of us who follow violence in the repossession industry, the first reports were horrifying, but sadly familiar.

A group arrived at a business looking for a vehicle and there was a dispute with the owners, the confrontation escalated and a weapon appeared. Gunfire followed.

By the time it was over, Mike and Mary Moore, owners of Mike’s Towing, were dead.

And according to the first information released by Tulsa Police, it had started over a repossessed vehicle. Early reports quoted Officer Andre Baul saying the group had come to the towing company looking for a vehicle that had been repossessed.

Except now, it appears that it may not have.

As more information emerged, the description of the vehicle changed from repossessed to impounded. There have also been claims on social media that the vehicle had been towed from private property at an apartment complex.

Those social media claims should always be taken with a grain of salt unless supported by official records or credible reporting.

But the more recent reporting is also using the word impounded rather than repossessed. Investigators are now reported as saying that Darius Jones and two other people went to Mike’s Towing to retrieve an impounded vehicle.

At this point, arguing over terminology risks losing sight of something considerably more important.

Two people are dead.

Whether the vehicle arrived at Mike’s Towing because of a delinquent auto loan, a private-property tow or some other reason doesn’t change what happened to Mike and Mary Moore.

But how the story was initially reported, and how that reporting evolved, does tell us something about two industries the public and press have confused for a very long time.

What Happened at Mike’s Towing

Tulsa Police responded Friday morning, August 28, to Mike’s Towing near North Garnett Road and Pine Street following reports of a shooting.

The preliminary police account said a group had arrived at the towing company to dispute a vehicle that had been repossessed.

That wasn’t an interpretation by a repossession publication or someone on social media. It came directly from police.

In the Tulsa Police Department’s initial public statement, the one reproduced with this editorial, the department wrote:

“The preliminary investigation suggests a group showed up at the towing company to dispute a repossessed vehicle.”

Officer Andre Baul gave reporters a similar account. Early reports described a group coming to the business looking for a repossessed vehicle. Two people reportedly entered the business to speak with the owner, an altercation followed and guns were drawn.

That understandably caused the incident to be reported as repossession-related.

But this was breaking news. And breaking news changes.

From “Repossessed” to “Impounded”

As investigators learned more, an important word began changing. The vehicle was no longer being described as repossessed. It was being described as impounded.

More recent reporting says investigators determined that Jones and two other people went to Mike’s Towing to retrieve an impounded vehicle. Police reportedly reviewed security video of the confrontation as the investigation developed.

That terminology also fits what we know about the business.

Mike’s Towing openly operates an impound and storage lot at its North Garnett Road location. Its website provides detailed instructions regarding documentation, ownership verification and the release of impounded vehicles. The company’s primary website describes Mike’s as a Tulsa towing and roadside-assistance operation, while Oklahoma records list Mike’s Towing as an active licensed wrecker service.

Then came social media.

In comments responding to the Tulsa Police Department’s post, a commenter claimed that records showed the vehicle had been on private property at an apartment complex and insisted there had been “No repo at all.”

Perhaps, but Facebook comments aren’t police reports.

We reproduce that discussion with this editorial not as proof of what happened, but because it illustrates the confusion surrounding the story remarkably well.

The initial police statement said repossessed.

Members of the public challenged that characterization.

Subsequent reporting began saying impounded.

The story was changing almost in real time and at CURepossession, we found ourselves trying to answer the same deceptively simple question:

Was this a repo or a tow?

Increasingly, the reporting points toward an impound.

Before going any further, two names deserve considerably more attention than either repo or tow.

Mike and Mary Moore.

They were husband and wife, business owners, employers and parents.

More recent reporting describes employees of Mike’s Towing as heartbroken over their deaths. Their family shared a photograph of Mike and Mary with their 12-year-old daughter, whose adoption they reportedly finalized earlier this year.

That detail makes an already terrible story particularly difficult to read.

Joshua Katschke, an employee at Mike’s Towing, said he has known the couple for years and considered them like family.

“Mike and Mary would take their shirts, including the one I have, off the backs that they wear and give it to anybody. They’re very churchgoing people. And I wish this didn’t have to happen,” Katschke said.

Katschke said the Moores gave him far more than a paycheck.

“Gave me a job, a place to live,” he said. “He’d always come in and smile. Always send me on a call that he knew that no one else could do. Taught me what I needed, stood up for me. Gave me everything I needed to survive. Taught me that family was everything.”

According to investigators’ current account, Jones and two other people arrived to retrieve the vehicle. Police say security video shows Jones pulling a gun and pointing it at Mike Moore. Investigators allege that Moore then drew his own weapon and that Jones fired, striking Mike and Mary.

Jones was also wounded.

Any criminal allegations against Jones remain allegations. He is entitled to the presumption of innocence unless and until proven guilty in court.

Those proceedings will determine criminal responsibility, but they won’t give a child her parents back.

Repo or Tow? We’ve Been Asking That Question for Years

CURepossession has spent considerable time recently discussing the growing overlap between the towing and repossession industries.

But the difficulty separating the two isn’t new.

For years, one of the challenges in reporting repossession-related incidents has been determining whether a news report describing a tow-truck driver, vehicle recovery, impound, or simply a towed vehicle actually involved a repossession.

Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t.

I encountered the same problem repeatedly while researching and writing Repo Blood: A Century of Auto Repossession History.

Historical newspaper accounts could describe someone as a tow-truck operator in one article, a collector in another and a repossessor somewhere else. Determining whether an incident actually belonged in the history of repossession sometimes required digging well beyond the headline.

That problem hasn’t disappeared in the internet age.

We’ve encountered modern incidents in which what initially appears to be an ordinary towing story turns out to involve a recovery agent working a lender assignment.

Tulsa appears increasingly likely to demonstrate the reverse.

Here, police themselves initially used the word repossessed, and news organizations understandably repeated it. As the investigation developed, the terminology shifted toward impounded.

There may be another reason the distinction gets lost. Repossession simply makes for a better story.

“Repo man” carries an image that “tow-truck operator” does not, debt, confrontation and someone taking a vehicle its owner doesn’t want taken. Movies, television and decades of headlines have made repossession almost a genre unto itself.

When a tow becomes confrontational, it can therefore be tempting for the public, and sometimes the press, to reach for the more dramatic word.

But a better headline doesn’t necessarily make for a more accurate one.

And there’s an ironic flip side.

When violence occurs during an actual repossession, the person performing it is frequently described simply as a tow-truck driver.

So a contentious tow can become a “repo,” while an actual repossession can become a “tow.”

Repossession may be more interesting as a story while remaining less understood as an occupation.

For those of us trying to document violence within the recovery industry, that isn’t merely semantics. It makes determining what actually happened considerably harder.

Different Reasons. Same Deadly Result.

If an impound-yard shooting is incorrectly reported as repossession violence, it becomes part of the repo industry’s history when it doesn’t belong there.

But the opposite can happen as well.

When a recovery agent is assaulted or killed and a police report or local news story identifies the victim simply as a tow-truck driver, a genuine repossession incident can disappear from that history altogether.

I’ve spent enough time trying to separate those threads to know how difficult it can be.

Tulsa may ultimately prove to be another example.

The first official account said repossession.

The developing account increasingly says impound.

We should follow the facts wherever they lead.

But whether this confrontation began with a repossession or a tow, the parallels with violent incidents we’ve reported from the repossession industry are difficult to ignore.

Different reasons brought the vehicles into someone’s possession.

Different circumstances created the disputes.

Yet sometimes they arrive at the same terrible destination.

And whether Mike and Mary Moore died following a repossession dispute or an impound dispute ultimately matters far less than the fact that two people went to work at their family business Friday morning and never came home.

For those of us trying to accurately report what happened, the distinction between repo and tow matters.

For a family in Tulsa, it doesn’t.

Repo or tow, it doesn’t matter. This was a tragedy.

And long after we’ve determined exactly what brought that vehicle onto Mike’s lot, the human cost of what happened there will matter far more than the label we put on it.

Repo or Tow, The Tulsa Murders Expose a Dangerous Confusion – Repo or Tow, The Tulsa Murders Expose a Dangerous Confusion – Repo or Tow, The Tulsa Murders Expose a Dangerous Confusion

Kevin Armstrong

Publisher

Repo or Tow, The Tulsa Murders Expose a Dangerous Confusion – Repossession Violence – Repossession History – Repossession – Repossess – Repossession – Repossession Agency – Repossessor – Police – Police – Arrest – Arrest – Gun