Ride-share driving is not easy. You never know who is going to get into your car. Just look at a recent viral video of one driver in Lancaster, Pennsylvania who escaped an attempted robbery.
Lyft Driver Picks Up the Wrong Passenger
Dash-cam footage shows a passenger identified as 19-year-old Michael Baker inside a ride-share vehicle. Baker tells the driver he doesn’t have money to pay for the ride departing from Howard Avenue. “Get the f**k out,” the driver responds, and that’s when everything escalates.
Baker tells the driver, “Watch what you’re f**king saying to me.” Then, a weapon that police determined as a 9mm semi-automatic handgun came into frame. They point the gun to the driver’s head. Meanwhile, Christian Lebron-Devila, 23, uses his gun to hit the driver in the side of the head. “Dude!” the driver says. “I’m trying to get out of here. Could you please get out of my car right now?” the driver responds.
The Driver Escapes with His Life
The driver explains that he doesn’t have anything in his pockets and asks the passenger to get out of his car again. The passenger finally leaves. The last few minutes of the video show the driver driving off, clearly relieved to be rid of the passenger and still alive.
The Lyft driver says that there is “no point in trying to rob Lyft or Uber drivers” because they do not carry cash. He published the video in hopes that other drivers will install their own dash-cams for safety. He firmly believes that the attempted robbery was a setup due to “the way it went down,” but says he just feels lucky to be alive.
“At the moment, I didn’t realize if they were real or not until after the situation when I went back and looked at the video.”
The Pennsylvanian Lyft driver
Michael Baker and Christian Lebron-Devila were both arrested on “criminal conspiracy to commit robbery” and assault charges. The authorities were able to find Lebron-Devila based off the suspect description. He lived on the same street where the attempted robbery happened and was seen wearing the same jacket as when the violence ensued. Baker was found through the 9mm handgun that was seen in the video. He pulled out the gun on a woman during a separate incident and authorities were able to tie the two cases together.
Video Reactions
Many spectators commented on the nature of the violence in the video.
“How in the world did this man remain so calm throughout all of this?” one commentor wondered.
“Sad. Guy just working to make money. People don’t respect lives anymore,” another commentor wrote.
