A New York Lyft driver is considering a new career after a passenger attacked him in the middle of a ride.
NYPD are searching for a man who who may go by the name “Georgie” after he was caught on camera beating on a Lyft driver while they drove through Queens. Dashboard camera footage from inside the car, which was submitted to NBC New York, shows a woman and a man get into Eduardo Madiedo’s car, headed for Mount Sinai Hospital in Astoria.
The man in the back seat is visibly in some form of distress, laying down in the back, uttering painful groans, and eventually removing his shirt.
“Drive faster, please, man,” he says.
As his irritation heightens, he demands that Madiedo speed up and weave through traffic. Madiedo told the man that he couldn’t go faster because of traffic.
“Well I would have been in that right lane and found that hole right there,” the suspect is heard saying. Madiedo replied, telling him, “Excuse me man, if you’re going to be disrespectful, I’ll just pull over right now.”
That comment apprently set the passenger off, and things got violent.
The video shows the shirtless man attacking Madiedo, reaching over the driver’s seat and throwing a frenzy of punches and curses while they sit in traffic. The woman to the suspect’s right tries in vain to stop the melee, shouting, “Oh my God, please stop. Georgie, oh my God.”
The car stopped and the man got out. It seemed as if the ordeal was over, but “Georgie” decided he wasn’t done beating on his driver. He is seen throwing punches through the open driver’s side window before taking off. The woman is seen pursuing the man. Lyft announced that the suspect has been permanently banned from the service. Madiedo refused medical attention, and said he’s unsure if he’ll continue to drive for Lyft.
“I just felt like, less than human almost,” he told NBC. “I feel like I have to look for a new job or a new form of income.”
No arrests have been made.
