Crow Tow insists it isn't 'predatory.' A lawsuit and an Iowa legislator could test that.

Crow Tow’s sweeps of the crowded parking lot at Aspen Apartments on Des Moines’ east side began last fall ― and anger quickly followed.

Residents complained their cars disappeared, sometimes two at a time. Tow truck drivers shined flashlights in vehicles in the middle of the night to find those without parking stickers. Residents who parked in guest stalls were towed. So were visitors who parked in stalls meant for residents. Some people contended the drivers tried to tow vehicles even though they had stickers and were in the right spaces.

Each tow cost the tenants so much ― as much as $200 for a tow, more than $40 for each day the vehicle sat in a Crow Tow lot, or $150 cash to release a vehicle after it was mounted on a truck ― that children began warning adults when they saw a tow truck coming.

Joe Ward, a 34-year-old mechanic with a girlfriend and kids at the complex, was so fed up after four of their vehicles were towed, he started a petition calling for local officials to end “predatory towing” in apartment complexes.

Then last month, he said, he started to “Tiananmen Square” tow trucks that tried to enter the complex by standing in front of them like the unidentified 1989 protester who blocked Chinese tanks in Beijing.

Eventually, Ward's tactics got the attention of the complex’s property management company, LivLavender, and led to Des Moines police kicking him off the property. Ward said police threatened him with arrest for trespassing and the mother of his children with eviction.

“With Crow Tow’s history, I thought management would be ready and willing to listen to tenants," he said. "Management claimed I was the only person who had a problem. But everyone did.”

Since Randy Crow started his family business more than 20 years ago, hundreds of clashes and confrontations have erupted between local residents and his employees across the metro and at the Crow Tow’s offices.

One measure: From May 1, 2023, to May 1 this year, Des Moines police were called to the offices at 816 SE 21st St. 111 times. G&S Towing, a competitor that does impound business for Polk County and the Iowa State Patrol, had seven calls.

Nearly 7,700 people signed a Change.org petition four years ago urging the Des Moines Police Department to end a contract with the company, and others since have criticized city leaders for accepting campaign donations from Crow or his wife. Some of the most vocal complaints about Crow Tow online and on social media have come from those upset with its parking enforcement at private apartments and businesses.

Crow has long maintained that “nonconsensual” towing is a naturally confrontational business that is destined for flare-ups between unhappy scofflaws who break parking rules and towing employees who are just doing their job. Working with apartment complexes, event centers, bars, homeless shelters and small businesses, much of his business centers on that kind of towing, Crow told Watchdog last week.

“There’s nothing predatory about this business,” he said. “All we’re doing is following up with what private property owners need done.”

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Crow said that each business or property manager decides what they need in terms of service and that towing often helps resolve the problems they wrestle with, from late-night, after-hours partying and criminal activity in parking lots to safety hazards and abandoned cars at apartment complexes, to those who park in other people’s paid parking places in the East Village.

He acknowledged the enforcement upsets people for a time. But he said conflicts die down sharply after folks learn to comply. It works so well for some businesses, he said, that they decide they no longer need Crow Tow’s services.

With body cameras for drivers and extensive documentation, Crow insists his towing service is “the best you’ll find in the Midwest.”

“We’re a glass fishbowl,” he said. “Nobody is more open and clear and transparent than our company,”

But when asked whether he pays bonuses to drivers for nonconsensual tows on private lots ― something his critics say incentivizes aggressive towing and makes it predatory ― Crow would not answer.

“That’s none of your business,” he said.

Challenges coming at Crow Tow in the courtroom, at the Legislature

As national consumer groups have raised public awareness about the negative impact of aggressive or predatory towing, Crow faces some big tests ahead.

At the Legislature, State Rep. Heather Matson, an Ankeny Democrat, is preparing for a renewed push to pass a consumer-protection bill that is similar to those emerging in other states. The measure, which had bipartisan sponsors this year, would prohibit frequent sweeping of private lots, among other measures.

Matson said she has learned that Iowa has a lot of good towing companies, but also some of the least protection in the country for consumers whose vehicles are towed.

She said she became interested in towing after reading a story on Axios last year about a man who had to pay Crow Tow $1,000 in fees to retrieve a motorcycle that had been reported stolen — only to discover that it had been stripped for parts. Then she started listening to Iowans with towing stories.

“These are things that most people don’t think about until it happens to you, but it’s concerning what’s happening to people,” she said. “I just kept hearing that same ‘fed up’ thing.”

In addition to Matson's legislative push, the lawyer for a 50-year-old woman severely injured in a November 2022 accident at Crow Tow plans to challenge Crow’s business practices in a high-stakes civil negligence case scheduled for trial June 3-14.

Melissa Quiroz of Des Moines wound up outside Crow Tow that day with her brother and 5-year-old niece after the company towed her car because it was parked over a yellow parking stall line at her apartment complex, The Ridges, in southeast Des Moines, court documents show.

She was injured when an irate woman, Anjlena Achwiel, who didn’t have the money to retrieve her towed car from the lot, decided to try to grab the vehicle off the lot and flee, court documents show.

After a confrontation in the business office, Achwiel ran to her car, drove it around Crow Tow’s police impound lot and through its auction lot, crashed through an internal fence and drove around a truck an employee had parked in front of the office and then to a front gate that employees closed to try to stop her.

After honking and mouthing “move,” to Quiroz, Achwiel crashed through the gate, injuring Quiroz so badly she needed reconstructive face surgery.

The lawsuit alleges the business had a duty to maintain safe premises for its patrons. But Crow Tow countersued Achwiel, saying she alone was responsible for injuring Quiroz.

“Seeing the gate closed with a person nearby, Achwiel was not deterred and, despite knowing the risk a vehicle can cause when it hits a pedestrian, she found it more important to get away than avoiding an accident,” said a court filing in the case by Crow Tow’s Omaha, Nebraska, lawyer, Dan Ketcham.

Quiroz’s attorney, Jeff Campbell, has alleged in the lawsuit that Crow Tow has a “habit, routine, custom, practice and/or reputation for treating its customers in a rude and confrontational manner;” that it was warned by police before the accident that it needed de-escalation training for its staff, and that it failed to provide workplace safety training for employees.

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The lawsuit also alleges that Crow Tow engages in predatory towing practices and pays $30 bonuses to drivers on top of their base pay for nonconsensual tows, and that customers routinely become irate and threaten violence.

The case includes a long list of witnesses, including several Des Moines police officers and retiring Chief Dana Wingert, several doctors, workplace safety experts and current and former Crow Tow employees, including Dianna Hernandez-Lopez, who was its operations manager for seven years.

Hernandez-Lopez signed an affidavit for the court saying threats and verbal abuse happened on a daily basis, patrons would throw things and spit on employees, employees weren’t trained to handle confrontations, and they couldn’t call police unless Crow approved.

“It was clear during my time at Crow Tow that encountering violent or disgruntled people was an expected part of that job that everyone was expected to tolerate,” she said in the affidavit.

Other experts issued reports for the court saying Crow Tow’s habit of locking its front gate before angry customers try to get their vehicles ― rather than letting them go and billing them later, or calling police ― contributed to the accident.

Quiroz declined through her lawyer to be interviewed for this story.

Achwiel, who could not be reached for comment, wound up getting a deferred judgment last year after being charged with felony criminal mischief, serious injury by vehicle and knowingly leaving the scene of an accident, causing serious injury. She was ordered to serve four years of probation and pay more than $4,000 in fines and could be sent to prison if she violates the terms of her plea agreement.

She also has retained a lawyer to fight Crow Tow’s counterclaim.

A competitor: 'We try to treat people like I want to be treated.'

In places like Chicago, problems with towing companies have gotten so bad that the city has placed cease-and-desist orders on companies accused of deceptive practices, holding vehicles hostage and demanding payments of thousands of dollars.

In a few states, including Florida, Colorado and Virginia, legislators have passed laws that try to better regulate bad actors after a mix of organizations have said predatory towing puts a sudden, unfair financial burden on people that leaves them in financial distress.

Iowa law doesn’t regulate how frequently companies tow or whether companies need to photograph vehicles before they are towed. It also doesn't require companies to accept credit card payments or release cars at no charge or for a smaller “drop fee” before a tow to a lot; reimburse drivers for vehicles damaged during towing; or provide access to personal belongings that may be inside a towed car.

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But in Polk County, the Board of Supervisors in 2021 decided to rescind a low-bid contract offer to Crow Tow after complaints of thefts, high fees and poor customer service. Police had been called more than 370 times from 2018 to 2020 leading up to the decision, mostly because of disputes.

One unhappy customer was Supervisor Tom Hockensmith, who said the company tried to tow his car while he was briefly parked downtown in a fire lane and dropping off packages for his daughter.

County Administrator John Norris said this month he’s heard no complaints since G&S Towing Service took over the contract.

Darrel Beem, who runs G&S Towing, said people do complain sometimes when their vehicles are towed or sold at auction after not being retrieved. But Crow Tow’s business practices are much different from those of G&S, he said.

“If there’s no sticker in the car, they tow the car," he said. "The reason why (property managers) want to do it that way is that they don’t want to take the responsibility of saying, ‘Hey, I want this car towed.’… That’s why we don’t do that many on private property. I won’t put my guys in that situation.”

“We try to treat people like I want to be treated,” he said. “We just have different principles.”

Beem said G&S requires an apartment manager to sign off on having a car towed before it is removed from a lot. And he said his drivers make a commission on top of their wages for each tow, but they don’t get bonus pay for nonconsensual tows.

Des Moines police Sgt. Paul Parizek said owners whose vehicles are towed pay an administrative fee of $20 at the police department to have their car released from the impound lot at Crow Tow, a rate that has been steady for about 20 years.

Owners then go to Crow Tow to retrieve their vehicle, where they pay the tow and storage fees that Crow Tow charges.

"If the vehicle is abandoned by the owner and goes to auction, we pay the tow and storage fees to Crow Tow," he said. "Any proceeds from the sale of the vehicle, above what we paid to Crow Tow, goes to the state."

Colorado apartment management company leaves parking issues to Crow Tow

Dianna Talty is chief of staff for Vareco, the Colorado umbrella company for LivLavender, which manages Aspen Apartments. She said the company hired Crow Tow last fall because the complex was having a problem with broken-down cars and unauthorized vehicles, and it wanted to protect the safety of residents and prevent the lot from getting junky.

She said tenants were given a warning about the changes last October and told they were responsible for notifying visitors. They also were given guest parking passes at no cost as well as their own parking stickers.

“As long as people are following the guidelines, they will not be towed,” Talty said.

She said she would look further into the residents' complaints about Crow Tow’s ethics. “We care, too, and we want the residents to be happy,” she said.

Ward, who used to work on cars for residents for extra money at the complex, and his girlfriend, Essence Hudson, who has a baby girl at home and two boys with autism, both said the property manager's choice has had a big financial impact on them personally.

Ward said he was forced to sell a Ford Thunderbird because he didn’t have the money to pay the tow fees and get it off Crow Tow’s lot. “I wound up having to sell my car just to get my belongings out of it,” Ward said.

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Hudson said Crow Tow put her in a financial sinkhole.

Other residents voice similar complaints, some saying they intend to move at the end of their current leases because parking is such a hassle. And some complained they got no chance to make their case to the property manager before Crow Tow took action.

Resident Hayworth Hicks said he awoke to find a driver attempting to tow his Ford F-150 pickup in the middle of the night. He said he had a parking sticker but had parked in a guest space in front of his building because there wasn’t another space available in the lot.

“He said, 'Give me $150 and I’ll let it go right now,'” Hicks said. “I wanted to hurt him. I really did. If he hadn’t had that body camera on, it would have been a lot different. I had to borrow money from my Pops to pay it off.”

Lee Rood's Reader's Watchdog column helps Iowans get answers and accountability from public officials, the justice system, businesses and nonprofits. Reach her at lrood@registermedia.com, at 515-284-8549, on Twitter at @leerood or on Facebook at Facebook.com/readerswatchdog.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Inside the controversies over Crow Tow towing company in Des Moines