A California Uber driver says he was attacked and harassed after asking a passenger to wear a mask during a Sunday afternoon pickup.
CS SF Bay Area reports that the incident happened when Uber driver Subhakar Khadka arrived at San Bruno Ave. and Silver Ave. in San Fransisco, at around 12:45 p.m. According to Khadka, three women got into his car but one of them wasn’t wearing a mask.
Khadka said the women became belligerent when he asked the maskless woman to put on a mask. When she refused, Khadka said he drove to a gas station so she could buy one. The women reportedly became increasingly hostile and resorted to coughing on the driver, spraying him with pepper spray, grabbing his cellphone, and physically threatening him.
“Now you gonna get beat the f*** up,” one woman yelled.
Khadka said he didn’t do anything to warrant the attack on him.
“I never said anything bad to them,” Khadka told the outlet. ” 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, who’s originally from Nepal, said that he thought the attack may have been racially-motivated.
“If I was another complexion, I would have not gotten that treatment from them. The moment I opened my mouth to speak, they realized I’m among one of them, so it’s easy for them to intimidate me.”
One of the women took to Instagram and said that things got out of control because the driver threatened to drop them off “in the ‘hood” without waiting for a different driver to pick them up.
View this post on Instagram
San Francisco police are investigating the incident. Anyone with additionalal information should call the SFPD Tip Line at 1-415-575-4444 or send a text to TIP411 with the message “SFPD.”
California anti-masker who coughed on a driver says she plans to sue Uber pic.twitter.com/IjlGs0wnRg
— Fifty Shades of Whey (@davenewworld_2) March 9, 2021
Khadka said he had one message to give the women.
“Since you were born and raised here in the United States, don’t think the other person is less human.”
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[Feature Photo: Subhakar Khadka]
