Attorney Says Lyft Failed To Help Rideshare Driver Whose Car Was Fired Upon, And Who Was Then Beaten At His Passengers' Destination
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A rideshare driver experienced a terrifying ride recently as he was caught in the middle of gunfire and screams.
As CBS 2's Jermont Terry reported Tuesday night, the targets of the gunfire were the passengers in the back seat of the driver's very own car.
The Lyft driver was bruised in the face and now refuses to get back behind the wheel. Although a few weeks have gone by, an attorney said the driver is still too shaken to talk publicly about what happened.
But the driver and the attorney believe Lyft did not follow through on its promise to protect drivers in an emergency.
Video shows the Lyft driver has picks up two passengers in Woodlawn. A closer look shows the women slouching down in the back seat – and the rideshare driver was soon to find out why.
Headlights are then seen approaching, and when the Lyft driver stops at a traffic light, another vehicle pulls up alongside him and someone opens fire.
"They seem to have an understanding someone was after them, and of course, my client didn't have any knowledge of that until the shots came pouring in," said attorney Bryant Greening of Legal Rideshare LLC, who is representing the driver.
But by then, it was too late. The passengers ordered the driver to get away.
"Go! Go! Go!" they are heard saying in the video. "Can you go fast? Can you go fast?"
"At this moment in time, he was trapped," Greening said. "He had a gunman chasing him, and he had nowhere really to turn."
With the vehicle still following, dashcam shows the driver picks up his cellphone – but he does not call 911. Greening said the driver called Lyft – like drivers are instructed to do in emergencies.
"And the reason why he did that is because Lyft advertises to driver that it can share data with the police – the real-time location," Greening said.
The attorney insists that is the reason the driver continued on dropping off the passengers at their destination. The driver believed police would be there when he arrived. But they weren't.
Instead, a man waiting on the women at their destination beat the driver up for not getting away quick enough. The driver blames Lyft for not protecting him as promised.
"He asked for help, and no help arrived," Greening said. "If Lyft had sent the police to the location of his vehicle; had police tracking vehicle in real time, all of this could have been adverted."
Terry reached out to Lyft, which has not gotten back to us about their policy about what drivers should do in the event of an emergency
As for the criminal case connected to the drive-by shooting and the subsequent assault on the driver, Chicago Police are still investigating and have not made any arrests.