NEW ORLEANS – A local Lyft driver is talking about the moments she says a passenger attacked her, causing her to crash.
She also claims the New Orleans Police Department could have done more to catch her attacker.
A few weeks ago, Jalaine Michael decided to start driving for Lyft to make a few extra dollars. However, a week ago she said she experienced one of the most terrifying moments of her life.
It was around 1:30 in the morning when Michael got the call to pick up a passenger on Oak Street.
“I knew his name was Kyle because it came up on my screen,” she said. “There were a lot of people waiting on rides so I rolled the window down and asked, ‘Who’s Kyle?’ So, him and a female came walking to the car.”
Not long into the ride, she said he asked if she had an iPhone charger. Michael told him that she only had a charger for an Android phone.
“He jumped on top of the console in the middle of my car and started ripping all my wires and stuff out of the middle of the car,” she recalled.
That’s when she said he turned his aggression towards her grabbing her by the back of the neck.
“I told him to get out of the car, I was calling the cops,” she said. “He grabbed the steering wheel and that’s when the car smashed the side and the car got smashed in.”
She said he forced her to pull into an alley before he jumped out of the car and fled, leaving her with nearly $12,000 worth of damage to her car.
Michael’s attorney John Redman explained after officers took a report of the incident they told Michael they couldn’t go looking for the man because they didn’t have the resources.
“Maybe the police were stretched very thin that night, it’s just awful that an opportunity was missed,” Redman said. “Maybe it had to be missed, but it got missed.”
Now they are hoping that Lyft will help by providing the information of the passenger to police. Until then, Michael said she just won’t be at ease.
“I don’t feel like it’s safe,” she said.