Uber passenger who coughed on driver faces up to
16 years in jail
Harriet
Brewis
23 hours
ago
The Uber passenger who horrified social media after
she was filmed coughing at and attacking her driver could face up to 16 years
behind bars.
Arna
Kimiai, 24, was filmed tearing off her mask, coughing, and swearing at driver
Subhakar Khandka, 32, before seizing his phone.
Kimiai
finally handed herself into police on Sunday as fury over the incident
continued to mount.
A video of
the violent encounter, posted to Twitter on March 9, has since been viewed more
than 3.5 million times.
On
Wednesday, the 24-year-old was charged on multiple counts, the San Francisco
District Attorney’s Office told local media.
The include
two felonies – attempted robbery and assault on a hired transportation driver –
as well as lesser charges including violation of a Covid-19 health order, CBS
Bay Area reported.
If
convicted on all counts, she could face $3,000 in fines and up to 16 years in
state prison.
The
recording of the incident, which occurred on March 7, shows Kimiai saying “f***
the mask,” before reaching forward to grab Mr Khandka’s phone and yelling:
“What you gonna do?”
She
continues to scream and swear at him, while sitting beside her two friends in
the back of the car, as he tells her: “You don’t touch my property. You didn’t
buy it, I bought it, I worked hard for it.”
Days after
police launched an investigation, Kimiai’s lawyer Seth Morris confirmed that
she had handed herself in “peacefully” to San Francisco Police of her own
volition at around 7 pm on Sunday.
“Ms. Kimiai
acted appropriately and responsibly when she found out she had a warrant for
her arrest, coordinating her peaceful surrender through her legal counsel and
the SFPD,” Mr Morris said in a statement.
Fellow
rider Malaysia King, also 24, has also been arrested for her aggression towards
Mr Khandka.
In the
video, she can also be seen coughing, shouting and laughing and the 32-year-old
as he attempts to defend himself against his unruly passengers.
After the
camera stopped, King allegedly reached into the window and sprayed what is
believed to have been pepper spray into the car.
She was
arrested on March 11 on a number of charges for assault with a caustic
chemical, assault and battery. The third suspect has not yet been publicly
identified.
Mr Khadka
later said in an interview that Kimiai “started taunting me, cursing me,
questioning me about being a man”.
He added:
“The ladies were even talking about shooting me, calling their cousins to shoot
me. They were making fun of my race."
All this,
he said, because he had pulled over and asked all three passengers to wear
their masks.
A GoFundMe
page has since been set up for Mr Khandka to support him during time off work,
as he works through his trauma from the ordeal.
Uber handed
him a meagre $120 in compensation for the incident. The online fundraiser has
so far raised more than $100,000.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário