Witnesses: Driver caught by flailing cable as he chased fleeing SUV

A tow truck driver dragged to his death Wednesday was caught in a steel cable as he chased after a vehicle he had attempted to tow from an east Colorado Springs apartment complex, witnesses told an apartment manager.

Hill Park Apartments assistant manager Reggie Lawson on Thursday said witnesses told him the black GMC jumped a curb, took off across a shuffleboard and horseshoe area, then streaked back toward the entrance off North Murray Boulevard.

The driver, a woman who has been questioned by police, was attempting to keep the sport-utility vehicle from being towed by Allen Rose, a driver for J & J Towing.

No arrests had been announced Thursday afternoon.

Rose chased after the GMC as it drove off trailing a steel cable ripped from the tow truck, witnesses told Lawson. The flailing cable snared Rose’s legs, police said.

“It’s a metal cable. It’s naturally going to want to recoil itself,” said Jason Bankey, co-owner of ASAP Towing & Recovery Inc. “It would spiral and grab anything it came into contact with.”

Rose, a 35-year-old Iraq war vet, died at Memorial Hospital about 11:30 a.m. Wednesday after being dragged more than a mile along East Platte Avenue.

The tragedy began about a half-hour earlier when Rose attempted to winch the GMC onto his flatbed truck.

The woman who drove off in the SUV was not a tenant but had been staying with one, apartment manager Kathryn Shelton said. She ran from a nearby building and jumped into the vehicle as Rose was linking a cable from the SUV to his truck, Lawson said he was told by witnesses.

When the driver of the SUV accelerated, the cable ripped from the tow truck and began flailing around, Lawson said. As Rose ran to head off the SUV before it could reach Murray Boulevard, the 40- to 50-foot-long cable grabbed him and pulled him out onto the road with the vehicle.

“There was no way anyone could have missed seeing him in those mirrors,” said Lawson, conveying reports of witnesses that Rose was being dragged several feet behind the SUV.

Pan Bamba, 63, whose apartment window is less than 30 feet from the entrance to the complex off North Murray, said she heard the commotion and looked out. Bamba said she saw the SUV darting out of the complex, Rose bouncing into the air like a caught fish being yanked by a line, and onlookers running down the road yelling and waving their arms.

“I’m still sick,” Bamba said. “When I close my eyes, I see that. Every time I think of it my head hurts.”

Rose broke free of the steel cable at Platte Avenue and Babcock Road.

Rose’s relatives, friends and colleagues gathered Thursday night for a candlelight vigil at the apartments and a procession to Platte and Babcock to honor him.

Shelton said Rose was at the complex Wednesday to remove the SUV, which had no license plates and had not been moved for four days. The apartment management has a contract with the towing company to patrol the parking lot and check for illegally parked and abandoned vehicles, Shelton said.

“He wasn’t just a tow truck driver. He was a friend of ours,” a teary-eyed Shelton said. “He was like family. Allen would pop in and we’d talk about our families and stuff. He was a really good family guy.”