A WOMAN was seen on dashcam video coughing on and assaulting an Uber driver in California after he refused service to her and her two women passengers for not wearing a mask.
Subhakar Khadka was driving in San Francisco on Sunday when the three women entered his Uber and allegedly sprayed something believed to be pepper spray in his car after yelling profanities at him and assaulting him.
Khadka's dashcam video shows the three women in the back seat berating Khadka, 32, with profanities just after 12:45PM on Sunday near San Bruno and Silver Aves.
The Uber drive said he asked one of the women to put on a mask when he noticed she wasn't wearing one, and even drove to a nearby gas station so she could buy one.
Khadka then pulled over to tell the women to wear their facemasks, telling them to get out of his car if they would not comply. One of the women yells at him saying "f*** the masks" before coughing on him.
The video then shows one of the women coughing on Khadka while grabbing his cellphone from the center dashboard and ripping off his facemask.
"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 San Francisco. He thinks he was harassed given he is a South Asian immigrant.
"You guys are animals to treat other human beings like this," he added, saying they quickly called him racial slurs.
Police said one of the women then sprayed a substance likely to be pepper spray into his face and car before exiting, but he managed to retrieve his cell before they left.
"She pepper-sprayed inside my car, from the passenger window that was open little bit, that was the only window open in my car," Khadka said, adding he left his car because it was difficult to breathe.
After immigrating to the United States from Nepal over eight years ago, Khadka said he has been supporting his family through Uber and was targeted because of his race.
"If I was another complexion, I would have not gotten that treatment from them," he said. "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."
"Since you were born and raised here in the United States, don’t think the other person is less human," he warned the women.
Khadka was given $120 from Uber in cleaning funds, but has said that's still not enough. A GoFundMe has so far raised $10,000 to help him.
Uber confirmed the woman has been banned from its app. "The behavior seen in the video is appalling. The rider no longer has access to Uber."
The woman in the video has also been banned from Lyft after she posted a video threatening to sue Uber.
"That's why I take Lyft," the woman posted in the video after saying everyone she knows would have been much more forceful with the man.
But the other ridesharing company also banned her from its platform.
"Although this incident did not involve the Lyft platform, the unacceptable treatment of the driver in this video compelled us to permanently remove the rider from the Lyft community," the company said in a statement.
"Driving in a pandemic is not easy. Please wear a mask, respect one another, and be a good person.”
"Where's my check at?" she asked towards Uber, saying she was planning on suing the app for banning her.
Another video from the woman shows the incident unfolding in the Uber, with the woman saying "I'm not getting out here" and then adding "Imma beat your a**" to the driver.
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