SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – An Uber driver in San Francisco was beaten and coughed by a woman traveling with two other women after he refused the service for not wearing masks, in an attack that the driver captured on video.
San Francisco police also said that one of the women sprayed what is believed to be pepper spray on the vehicle and in the driver’s direction after exiting the vehicle. The incident happened on Sunday, around 12:45 pm, on Avenida San Bruno and Avenida Silver.
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The video was filmed on Sunday by the driver, identified as 32-year-old Subhakar Khadka. In it, three women are seen in the back seat scolding the driver with profanity. At one point, the woman who coughed in the driver also grabbed her cell phone in the central area of the dashboard and tore off the mask he was wearing.
Warning: disturbing video, explicit language (Source: Subhakar Khadka)
The driver said he stopped to tell the women to wear masks and the driver told the women to get out of their car. The video starts with a woman saying to the driver: “F— the masks!” and coughing repeatedly at him.
Khadka says he believes he was harassed and ridiculed by unruly passengers because he is an immigrant from South Asia.
“I never said anything bad to them, I never cursed, I was not raised like that. I don’t hit people, I wasn’t raised that way, so they didn’t get out of my car, ”said Khadka.
Khadka said his nightmare started on Sunday afternoon. He picked up the three women at Bayview on Avenida San Bruno. When he realized that a woman was not wearing a mask, he said he asked her to put one on. He drove to a nearby gas station so that she could go on one. But by this time, he says that racial slander and provocation had already started.
“You are animals to treat other human beings like that,” he told KPIX 5.
And that was not the worst. He says that after they finally got out of the car, he said that the red pepper woman sprayed him.
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“She sprayed pepper inside my car, from the passenger window that was slightly open, it was the only window open in my car,” he said.
Khadka says he had to get out of the car because it was difficult to breathe.
He says he came to the United States eight years ago and works hard to support his family in Nepal. He says he was shot because of his race.
“If I had been another complexion, I would not have received this treatment from them,” he said. “The moment I opened my mouth to speak, they realized that I am among them, so it is easy for them to intimidate me.”
His message to women is: “Since you were born and raised here in the United States, don’t think that the other person is less human.”
The driver said Uber gave him $ 120 in total cleaning funds after several requests, which is still not enough.
Uber confirmed the incident and in an email to KPIX 5 said: “The behavior seen in the video is terrible. The passenger no longer has access to Uber. “
San Francisco police said the driver managed to recover possession of his phone from the woman and the three fled after the attack.
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Anyone with information about the incident was asked to call the SFPD Tip Line at 1-415-575-4444 or send a text message to TIP411 and start the text message with SFPD.