‘He hit my car!’ Video goes viral of Charlotte man chasing down hit-and-run driver
A 23-year-old Charlotte business owner became an overnight internet sensation this week after posting a two-and-a-half-minute long video of him screaming incessantly at a driver he says tried to “do a hit and run” on Interstate 77.
Deston Thornton recorded himself confronting the other driver as they both exited their cars, following the collision. Thornton had followed the other car to a stopping point on an exit ramp near Statesville Road. Thornton says he started recording the now viral video with his phone after the other driver hit his car on the highway and took off.
The video accelerated quickly, too.
Within 24 hours, Thornton’s video posted nearly 4 million views on Twitter. He’s also changed his handle to “He Hit My Car And Trying To Leave!”
“Broooo look at this man TRY TO DO A HIT AND RUN!!!!” Deston Thornton posted with his video, which shows the driver weaving across lane markers ahead of Thornton. “THIS IS NOT COOL I JUST GOT THIS WHIP.”
“He hit my car on the highway and is trying to leave,” Thornton says repeatedly in the video.
“Bro, you’re not getting away,” Thornton says after the other driver stops his car. “I’m going to call the police.”
Thornton says he recently bought the 2015 Dodge Challenger.
The other driver, whose name is not known, is heard apologizing several times before walking around Thornton’s car to see rear-end damage. Then, in the video, he’s seen removing damaged panels from his own car and says “This is my girl’s car. I’m sorry, man.”
The man then puts a piece of twisted metal from his car into his trunk. At one point, the driver yells back at Thornton: “Calm the ---- down, man.”
“I’m recording all this,” Thornton tells the driver when the man walks away from him at one point. “What is your name? You’re trying to run off.”
“You’re going on the internet, too, bro,” Thornton tells the man.
The collision happened near the exit for Interstate 85 from Interstate 77 north, Thornton said. Shortly after confronting the other driver, North Carolina Highway Patrol arrived.
“Highway patrol pulled up off the highway, I didn’t even have to call. Everything was taken care of,” Thornton wrote on Twitter Wednesday night.
“It was a hit and run!” he wrote in a reply to the Observer on Thursday. “We ended up being on the Statesville Road exit.”
Thornton lives in Charlotte and is an entrepreneur with three businesses: “a carpet cleaning business, my own (clothing) brand and a t-shirt printing business.”
He graduated from Johnson C. Smith University in 2017, according to his Twitter page.
Some on Twitter agreed with the other driver, saying Thornton needed to calm down.
Others empathized with Thornton.
“Bro just got this car like 2 weeks ago,” a woman posted. “His hard earned money and a (expletive) gone hit him on the HIGHWAY. And y’all folks worried about how he reacted? .... Y’all would do the same.”
This story was originally published July 2, 2020 at 3:53 PM.