Atlanta police say a driver for UberEATS, the ride-hailing company’s food delivery service, shot and killed a customer in the city’s posh Buckhead neighborhood late Saturday night.
The victim was identified by a local NBC affiliate as 30-year-old Ryan Thornton, a recent Morehouse College graduate. According to NBC’s report, Thornton and the UberEATS driver exchanged words after the delivery was made. The driver then allegedly shot Thornton several times and fled in a white Volkswagen vehicle.
Thornton was taken to a local hospital, where he later died from his wounds. The alleged shooter was still on the run from police early this morning.
An Uber spokesperson said the company was “shocked and saddened” by the event, and are cooperating with Atlanta police in the investigation.
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One Buckhead resident told the television station that he would be more cautious about using Uber services after the shooting. Uber drivers have been implicated in violence in the past, and the company’s approach to screening its drivers has been criticized for some of its legal and public relations problems.
The most damaging case was likely that of an Indian passenger who was raped by an Uber driver in 2014. In court documents, the passenger alleged that Uber executives wrongfully obtained her medical records with apparent plans to discredit her. The driver was sentenced to life in prison, and Uber settled the civil suit brought by the victim late last year.
Last November, two women filed a class-action lawsuit against the company in the U.S., alleging that its failure to screen drivers has led to thousands of incidents of sexual harassment and even rape of female passengers. In one example, an Uber driver was arrested for the rape of a passenger last December, also in Atlanta. Just days later, an Uber driver in Lebanon confessed to murdering a British Embassy staffer there.
Under former CEO Travis Kalanick, Uber fought hard against certain driver-screening rules. In one case, Uber shut down its operations in Austin, Texas in 2016 after spending millions of dollars to defeat a background-check rule there, and failing. It returned to the city after state legislators overturned the local ordinance. Safety concerns were also among the reasons London has barred Uber from operating there.
