A man trying to retrieve his daughter’s wrongfully towed car from a Salem lot was hit in the face multiple times by an out-of-control manager — and now the towing company is on the hook for nearly 1, 2 million dollars.

Although the initial tow was frustrating enough, Curtis Bunch testified last week in Multnomah County Circuit Court that his yard visit went from zero to hostile in a matter of seconds, all because Towing Retriever the manager assumed he was not allowed to use a parking space marked for the disabled.

“I understand why your vehicle was towed in the first place. You can’t pay attention to the rules,” former manager Richard Pinkerton said in body camera footage shown to the jury.

(READ MORE: Hundreds of vehicles towed from private lots in Portland every month; see hotspots)

Bunch, 62, has license plates that say he is a permanently disabled veteran and a standard blue placard on his truck, but instead of checking, Pinkerton hit the other man in the face four times during the confrontation of July 6, 2020.

At the end of a six-day trial this week, a Multnomah County jury awarded Bunch $1,185,000, including compensation for physical and mental trauma. About a quarter of a million of the award is punitive damages, of which 70 percent goes to the state under Oregon law. While the incident occurred in Marion County, Retriever Towing is based in Portland.

“The violence of this attack made jurors cringe when they watched the video,” said Paul Krueger, the plaintiff’s attorney, who said it was not. aware of a wider verdict related to a tow suit.

(WATCH: Wrong towing escalates when Retriever Towing manager hits man. Now they’ll pay $1.2 million)

The saga began on June 3, 2020, when Bunch testified that her daughter’s 2009 Mercedes disappeared from outside her Salem home despite having proper parking permits. It shouldn’t have been towed in the first place, Krueger said.

Bunch arrived at the tow yard three days later and approached Pinkerton on the other side of the chain link gate, according to footage from the manager’s body camera and an overhead surveillance camera.

Bunch and Pinkerton talk calmly for just a few seconds before the manager challenges his parking job and Bunch coldly replies, “You think you can move it?”

Pinkerton sure did. The 56-year-old man went straight to his truck and opened the gate.

“You think you’re big enough to stop me, man?” he yelled, according to the camera footage.

That’s when Bunch opened the side door of the truck, grabbed a gun and put it in his back belt. As a concealed carry carrier, Bunch was allowed to do so and broke no laws, his attorney said, citing testimony from Salem police at the trial.

Video footage shows Bunch did not point the gun and held his hands to his sides after cocking it.

Pinkerton saw the action and issued his own challenge: “Mine is bigger.”

The two men approached the van again; Pinkerton shouted a trespass order, then counted to five.

With what he later called a “jaw pop,” Pinkerton struck Bunch in the face, breaking several bones, according to trial testimony. The manager ripped the gun from the opponent’s belt and threw it everywhere.

“Twenty-three years in the army – I’ve killed 21 men, you’re no man!” Pinkerton shouted, adding a curse.

Bunch left the scene while Pinkerton called 911, but the ensuing investigation ended with the tow truck manager cited for fourth-degree assault. He was sentenced to a year and a half of probation in 2021 and seven days of house arrest, according to Marion County court records.

According to Bunch’s attorney, the attack precipitated a string of bad luck for Bunch. The mental strain fractured his marriage and triggered PTSD, making it impossible for him to continue working in construction, according to Krueger. The veteran became homeless when his home in Monmouth was badly damaged in an ice storm. Before the jury’s verdict, he was living in a trailer in Newport.

As for Pinkerton, he did not testify at trial, but claimed in earlier depositions that he was called for assault that day after someone called and threatened to blow up the facility. The recordings were nowhere to be found later, Pinkerton said in the deposition, blaming an office manager with whom he had bad blood.

Attorneys for Retriever Towing argued in the lawsuit that it was an isolated incident and that any problems the company had were fixed when Pinkerton resigned following his misdemeanor conviction.

Pinkerton struck a less conciliatory tone when reached for comment, blaming the verdict on jurors in a liberal city and saying the true story “should be told from the grave of victims now too afraid to defend themselves.”

This is not the only legal development for Retriever Towing and its owner, Michael Coe, who did not respond to a request for comment.

Oregon Department of Justice sued the company last year, accusing its drivers they were continually violating an Oregon law that requires an on-site signature from a property manager before every tow, even if it happens late at night.

In testimony, Pinkerton said the company largely ignored an earlier agreement to comply with that law, noting that Retriever Towing doesn’t charge property owners, but instead makes its money from people paying impound fees.

The DOJ case against Retriever continues in Multnomah County, a judge recently signed a limited ruling validating the meaning of the towing law, a legal finding that allows Retriever to appeal to a higher court.

—Zane Sparling covers breaking news and the courts for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Contact him at 503-319-7083, [email protected] or @pdxzane.

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