The Fight Against Predatory Towing in St. Louis
By Z Gorley
March 14, 2025
Imagine the shock of stepping outside your front door only to find your car being towed away.
This nightmare became a reality for Keyanna Dorsey, a hardworking single mother of four and recent grandmother, when University City directed Hartmann’s Towing to tow two of her vehicles from her driveway. In the process of moving one of her cars to the street, the towing company caused damage to another. What should have been a routine day quickly spiraled into a costly battle for her rights and livelihood.
Ms. Dorsey, a proud University City resident, had no municipal tickets or outstanding violations. She hadn’t received any notice or explanation about why her cars were targeted.
When Ms. Dorsey sought answers, she was met with nothing but frustration. University City code enforcement officers and police simply referred to her vehicles as “nuisances,” providing no further explanation.
For Ms. Dorsey, this wasn’t just an inconvenience—it was a major disruption. Her cars were critical to her family’s daily life. She relied on her vehicles to commute to work and take family members to and from work, school, and doctor appointments.
Over the following six months, two of Ms. Dorsey’s cars were trapped in a tow lot. Hartmann’s Towing told her that the charges to recoup the vehicles would exceed $8,000, an impossible amount for a family struggling to make ends meet. Meanwhile, her third vehicle required thousands of dollars of repairs. For a single mother like Ms. Dorsey, this financial burden was staggering.
Ms. Dorsey reached out to ArchCity Defenders for help. Through media coverage and negotiations with University City, we were able to secure an agreement: the city is covering the cost of the repair and released one of her vehicles from the tow lot. But this victory is just one example of a much larger pattern.
A Broader Pattern of Abuse
Keyanna Dorsey is not alone in her experience. Across the region, residents from Hazelwood and Calverton Park have contacted ArchCity Defenders with similar stories of illegal and unethical towing practices. These cases represent a disturbing trend of municipalities exploiting their residents, often targeting low-income and Black communities in ways that undermine their rights and financial stability.
In October of 2023, we filed a lawsuit on behalf of Christina Reise, Sharon Jones, Alan Miller, Jessica Smith, and Michael White against the city of Calverton Park, for illegally towing their cars from their private properties. That case is ongoing, but it highlights a growing concern that local governments are using towing and impoundment as a tool to generate revenue, often without any legitimate cause or warning.
Fighting a Predatory System
ArchCity Defenders has challenged these abuses for over a decade. Since 2009, we’ve represented thousands of residents whose rights have been violated by local governments and law enforcement. Additionally, we’ve filed civil rights litigation to challenge those systemic abuses.
In 2014, we documented the ways that municipalities across the St. Louis region used their police departments and municipal courts to extract money from mostly poor and Black residents.
In 2013, the municipal courts of St. Louis City and County collected $61,152,087 in fines and fees, 46% of the statewide total despite being home to only 22% of Missourians.
But our advocacy has made a difference. By 2024, after years of litigation and public pressure, we saw a dramatic reduction in fines and fees collected by these courts. Our follow-up report revealed that St. Louis City and County courts collected $17,819,458.49 in fines and fees, 31% of the statewide total and 71% less than a decade prior.
This success is a testament to the power of advocacy and litigation, but it also is a reminder of how much work remains to be done.
The Ongoing Battle for Justice
The stories of people like Keyanna Dorsey and Christina Reise are powerful reminders of the deep systemic issues facing low-income communities of color. These individuals are not merely victims of bureaucratic inefficiencies—they are caught in a system that punishes poverty and exacerbates inequality.
At ArchCity Defenders, we continue to fight against this system of exploitation and injustice. We are committed to helping residents like Ms. Dorsey reclaim their rights, name and shame the actors behind the injustices, and to fight back.
Our storytelling project Pay or Stay: The Fight to Abolish St. Louis’ Debtors’ Prisons, explores these issues in greater depth through a video series, interactive maps, and research.
As we note in Pay or Stay, “court operations have scaled back compared to ten years ago. But history is not in the rearview mirror just yet.” And as long as injustices exist in our community, we will continue to fight. We invite you to learn more and join us.
If you or anyone you know has been affected by the towing schemes described in this post, please contact us.