Video shows Miami tow truck driver reversing into moving car, lifting it off the ground

An outside home surveillance vidoe system caught an usual and possibly dangerous sight Friday, when a Miami tow truck driver backed into a moving car and lifted it off the ground. The maneuver landed the truck driver in jail.

A 17-year-old girl was behind the wheel when the tow truck driver, later identified as Joshua Moralles, lifted her mother’s car off the ground.

She told the Miami Herald that while driving to her friend’s house in the area of Northwest Fifth Avenue and Northwest 42 Street, she saw a truck in her rear-view mirror possibly following her.

As she maneuvered to park in front of her friend’s house, the tow truck sped up in front of her and quickly reversed toward her. In a panic and scared that the truck was going to crash into her, she reversed into a parked car.

That didn’t stop Moralles from successfully getting the truck’s lift under the girl’s car and lifting its front half off the ground. A Ring surveillance camera caught this, but Moralles told police a different story.

According to an arrest report, Moralles told officers he was towing a car when he stopped to re-adjust it, which is when he says the 17-year-old sideswiped the truck and tried to drive away. Officers noted in the report there was no visible damage to the tow truck.

Moralles said that when the girl was trying to get away, he backed his truck into her car to stop her from leaving but did not hook the car or lift it, which is opposite from what the surveillance video shows, the report said.

Ani Rodriguez, the mother of the 17-year-old, told the Herald she was scared for her daughter’s life as she has heard of other teens losing their lives over much less.

“With everything going on in the world now, I freaked the hell out,” Rodriguez said. “I literally, in the matter of seconds, blacked out.”

Moralles was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and resisting arrest without violence.