Charges for murder have been filed against a lady in the US who accidentally shot her Uber driver while thinking she was being kidnapped. According to New York Post, the incident happened on June 16 in Texas. The woman, Phoebe Copas, 48, shot her driver, Daniel Piedra Garcia, because she believed he was trying to abduct her and take her to Mexico.
Ms. Copas. was charged of felony aggravated assault inflicting serious bodily injury. El Paso police released a statement citing that she is jailed on a $1.5 million bond. On the other hand, the driver’s family said that he was taken off life support on Wednesday.
The publication claims that Ms. Copas, a Kentucky native, was in Texas to see her lover. She requested an Uber to pick her up to meet her boyfriend at a nearby casino. The 48-year-old allegedly started to get concerned when she noticed signs on highway “Juarez, Mexico”.
“The investigation does not support that a kidnapping took place or that Piedra was veering from Copas’ destination,” police said, as per the outlet. “His passenger shot him in the head because she believed he was kidnapping her and taking her to Juarez, which was not the case,” the driver’s wife separately said in an online post, adding, “Daniel was simply following the route from the Uber app”.
That, according to Ms. Copas, is what made her think she was being abducted and taken to Mexico. The 52-year-old driver was shot in the back of the head and wrist when she pulled a handgun out of her bag, causing the car to crash. According to People, Ms. Copas even took a photo of the incident before phoning the police and sending it to her boyfriend.
According to Uber, they were “horrified” of the riders action the company stated in a statement to a local media site. A representative for the company said, “Violence is not accepted on the Uber platform and we banned the rider as soon as we were made aware of what happened.”
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