A Brooklyn man attempting to forestall his automotive from being impounded died after he was punched within the face by the tow truck driver he confronted, cops mentioned Sunday.
The dying of 61-year-old Carlyle Thomas by the hands of a person half his age has been categorized as a murder by the NYPD — and the sufferer’s devastated household mentioned he died over a $10 parking payment at a fuel station the place he recurrently helped out.
Thomas lived down the block from the Shell station on Clarkson Ave. close to Rockaway Parkway in East Flatbush the place he frolicked, generally pitched in working free of charge and infrequently left his automotive, his household mentioned.
“We thought the fuel station guys and him have been cool as a result of he was in there serving to and unpacking with them,” mentioned the sufferer’s nephew Dominic Graham, 37. “We didn’t assume they’d ever name a tow truck and do this.”
About 8:45 p.m. on Saturday, Thomas noticed his Honda Odyssey being hooked to a tow truck and confronted the driving force, based on cops and his household.
Because the argument escalated, the 30-year-old tow truck driver punched Thomas within the face, inflicting him to fall and hit the pavement, police mentioned.
Medics took Thomas to Brookdale College Hospital, however he couldn’t be saved.
Cops took the tow truck driver into custody with costs pending as they examine additional.
The fuel station costs native residents $10 to park in a single day if they will’t discover onstreet parking, the sufferer’s household says.
“He got here round and was having fun with the great climate yesterday,” Thomas’ stepdaughter Andrele Peters mentioned. “I suppose he didn’t pay the $10. He lived right here a very long time and has a relationship with them. He didn’t pay straight away, however they do have his contact and my mother’s contact.”
“As soon as they known as the tow truck they gave him a name like, ‘Hey, your automotive is being towed,’ ” she added. “He runs downstairs to see what’s occurring and his automotive is on prime of the tow truck. He’s verbally arguing with the tow truck man and what I heard subsequent, the man hits him so exhausting he fell to the ground and his coronary heart stopped.”
Thomas, a former jockey in his native Jamaica, labored coaching and feeding horses on the Aqueduct racetrack in Queens, his household mentioned.
“He was just like the neighborhood boss. He is aware of everybody and chills out with everybody,” Graham, his nephew, mentioned. “There was by no means an issue with anybody.”
Stepdaughter Peters identified that Thomas was such a daily presence within the fuel station most of his social media images have been taken there.
“He’s actually a superb man. What hurts to know is that he spent a lot time supporting this fuel station,” she mentioned. “He all the time tries to assist them out. To name the tow truck and never name the particular person first, it doesn’t make sense.”
One other stepdaughter, Alexis Peters, questioned why the tow truck driver didn’t merely name the police.
“There’s steps you possibly can take, you didn’t should bodily punch him,” she mentioned.
One pal, Errol Potinter, mentioned Thomas had earlier run-ins with tow truck drivers on the fuel station.
“It’s simply pointless,” he mentioned. “He’s jovial, easygoing. not likely a troublemaker.”
The Shell station parking zone was additionally the scene of a horrific screwdriver stabbing on July 24, 2022.
A shirtless drunken man handed out within the parking zone awoke and confronted a person pushing a Citi Bike, based on a witness. When the 47-year-old shirtless man insisted the bicyclist had taken one thing from him and demanded it again, the opposite man whipped out a screwdriver and stabbed him. The sufferer suffered two collapsed lungs.
