Two Las Vegas teenagers were arrested after they allegedly attacked an Uber driver when he declined to give them a ride. The brutal pummeling was caught on the driver's dashboard camera.
The Uber driver, who asked not to share his name, told KVVU-TV that he received a request to pick up the two young men outside an apartment complex near Las Vegas's Convention Center. He noted that the two passengers, who looked underage, had only requested one seat through the ride share app's UberPool.
Under Uber's policy, drivers are not allowed to accept ride request from underage passengers. Drivers are asked to decline the ride request if they believe the rider is under 18. UberPool is for one passenger, two is not allowed.
Before beginning the ride, the driver cancelled their request, KVVU-TV reported.
"Because of the situation being so shady he asked them to leave the car," the Uber driver's son, who also asked not to share his name, told the station. "When he asked them to leave they started throwing punches at him."
The driver's son said he rushed to meet his father following the "brutal" attack and said video of the incident was hard to watch "because it just makes you wonder how safe the drivers are when they're driving."
His father was "shaken up" and shaking when the two met. "He was basically panicking," he said. "He didn't know what was happening. They did a CAT scan of his brain and his face. They said that he has a broken cheek bone right under his eye."
Despite going through the distressing incident, the Uber driver is back on the road taking rides, his son said.
Las Vegas Metro Police confirmed to KVVU-TV that the two juveniles had been detained but did not release any other information
Uber released a statement to Newsweek condemning the passenger's behaviour.
"We expect riders to always treat drivers with respect. The behavior in the video is very disturbing and has no place in society," an Uber spokesman told Newsweek.
In another incident involving Uber, a woman in Iowa caught her Uber driver on camera making racial slurs and monkey noises while the two argued. The driver can be heard mocking the woman, identified as Kiara White, and saying, "Just like a monkey."
The pair continued to argue, with White calling the Uber driver a "slave" for "driving people around for a living." The two trade insults throughout the video, which was posted on White's Facebook page.
Uber told Newsweek at the time of the incident that the driver had been removed from the app.
"This behavior is appalling and it has no place on the Uber app or anywhere. Uber does not tolerate any form of discrimination and as soon as we learned of this report, we removed this driver's access to the app," a statement from the company said.
This story has been updated to include a statement from Uber about the attack on the Las Vegas driver.
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