Source: Siegfried Modola / Getty
Sadly, even during a pandemic, Uber drivers aren’t safe.
Late Monday night, a video went viral on Twitter that showed an Uber driver taking three young women, all of which were sitting in the back seat, to their destination. However, something went wrong when the girl sitting directly behind the driver got angry and proceeded to say that she has “corona” and began coughing in his direction, shouting, “F-ck the masks!” Then, she reached forward and grabbed his iPhone from what appeared to be the navigation holster and then snapped the mask right off of his face.
The video was captured by the 32-year-old driver Subhakar Khadka’s dashcam, and police say while leaving the vehicle, one of the women allegedly sprayed pepper spray in the driver’s direction. He believes he was assaulted and harassed because he is of South Asian descent.
“I never said anything bad to them, I never cursed, I was not raised that way. I don’t hit people, I am not raised that way, so they were not getting out of my car,” Khadka told CBS.
Dion Lim of ABC News’ San Francisco division spoke to Khadka to get the details on what actually happened during the violent ordeal.
Khadka said the drive began Sunday afternoon when he picked up the three women in the Bayview on San Bruno Avenue. At the beginning of the ride, he realized one of the passengers wasn’t wearing a mask. After asking her to put on one, he says he drove to a nearby gas station so she could buy one. But by the time they got there, the situation began to ignite in anger.
Uber has since given him $120 to pay damages, but he doesn’t think that’s enough.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CML_IERjg8Z/
One of the women in question took to Instagram to thwart the driver, saying his cropped video changed the story. She shared five videos of her own while sitting in the passenger seat, which mostly shows the women yelling once he asked them to get out.
Feelings were mixed on Twitter but check out some reactions below.
