SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – An Uber driver in San Francisco was assaulted and coughed by a woman who was traveling with two other women after refusing service for not wearing masks, in an attack the driver captured in a video .
San Francisco police also said one of the women sprayed what is believed to be pepper spray into the vehicle and into the driver after leaving the vehicle. The incident happened Sunday around 12:45 p.m. on San Bruno Avenue and Silver Avenue.
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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 denouncing the driver with blasphemy. At one point, the woman who coughed at the driver also grabbed her cell phone from the center area of the dashboard and ripped off her mask.
Warning: disturbing video, explicit language (Source: Subhakar Khadka)
The driver said he had gone ahead to tell the women to wear face masks and hears the driver telling the women to get out of their car. The video begins with a woman telling the driver, “F, the masks!” and then you cough repeatedly.
Khadka says he believes he was harassed and mocked by unruly passengers because he is a South Asian immigrant.
“I never said anything bad to them, I never cursed, they didn’t raise me like that. I don’t hit people, I’m not polite like that, so they didn’t get out of my car, “said Khadka.
Khadka said his nightmare began on Sunday afternoon. He picked up the three women in Bayview, on San Bruno Avenue. When he noticed that a woman was not wearing a mask, he said he asked her to wear one. He drove to a nearby gas station so she could make one. But by then, he says racial insults had already started teasing.
“You are animals to treat other human beings like that,” he told KPIX 5.
And that wasn’t the worst. He says that after getting out of the car, he says the woman with red pepper sprayed him.
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“He scattered pepper inside my car, from the passenger window that was just wide open, which was the only window open in my car,” he said.
Khadka says he had to get out of his car because it was hard to breathe.
He says he came to the United States eight years ago and is working hard to support his family in Nepal. He says it was a goal because of his career.
“If I were another skin, I wouldn’t have received that treatment from them,” he said. “The moment I opened my mouth to talk, they realized I was one of them, so it’s easy for them to intimidate me.”
Her message to women is, “Because you were born and raised here in the United States, I don’t think the other person is less human.”
The driver said Uber gave him $ 120 in dollars in total to clean up after multiple 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 appalling. The driver no longer has access to Uber.”
San Francisco police said the driver was able to regain possession of the woman’s phone and that the three women fled after the attack.
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Anyone with information about the incident was asked to call the SFPD advice line at 1-415-575-4444 or send a text message to TIP411 and start the text message with SFPD.