Uber passengers pepper-spray driver who told them to wear masks, California cops say

An Uber driver was pepper-sprayed and attacked by three women after refusing them service for not wearing masks, the San Francisco Police Department said.

In a video shot by Subhakar Khadka, 32, on Sunday, three women are seen yelling profanities at the rideshare driver.

One of the women, who wasn’t wearing a mask, is seen coughing on Khadka before taking his cell phone and ripping off his face mask.

Khadka told KPIX that he asked the woman to put on a mask and pulled over at a gas station so she could buy one, but they started yelling racial slurs at him. Khadka is heard in the video telling the women to get out of the car.

“If I was another complexion, I would have not gotten that treatment from them,” Khadka, who is from Nepal, told the station. “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.”

San Francisco police told McClatchy News that Khadka picked up the passengers at San Bruno Avenue and Felton Street on Sunday afternoon and he ended the ride a few minutes later because one of them wasn’t wearing a mask.

Police said another passenger in the car took Khadka’s phone and eventually gave it back to him. As the women were leaving the car, one of them is accused of spraying pepper spray into the car toward Khadka. The incident is under investigation by the San Francisco Police Department Robbery Unit, according to police.

An Uber spokesperson said in a statement to an ABC7 News reporter: “The behavior seen in the video is appalling. The rider no longer has access to Uber.”

Lyft also tweeted in response to the video on Tuesday that the rider has been removed from the 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 statement read. “Driving in a pandemic is not easy. Please wear a mask, respect one another, and be a good person.”

This story was originally published March 9, 2021 at 12:55 PM with the headline "Uber passengers pepper-spray driver who told them to wear masks, California cops say."