A Duncanville woman has a warning for ride-share users. The company Lyft is investigating an incident that ended with the woman and her child jumping from a moving car.
A Duncanville woman has a warning for ride-share users.
The company Lyft is investigating an incident that ended with the woman and her child jumping from a moving car.
Stefanie Brown and her young daughter said they still can't shake the ride they've been on.
"When I got out I was like: 'What just happened?!' It was, it was terrifying," said Brown.
Last Tuesday, Brown requested a ride from her Duncanville home using the ride-share app Lyft.
She saw a car that matched the one supposed to pick her up.
"The picture was I was looking for was a lady of African descent with a head cover of some sort. I get to the car and there's a person of brown-looking African descent. They had a covering that would not allow me to see the complete face," she said.
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Brown said she confirmed the driver's name.
"They were like yeah, yeah and so I matched the car with the license plate and we get in," she said. "Well when the driver turned their head the mustache appeared and I'm like: Aaralyn [her daughter] this is not the person!"
Brown said she screamed at the stranger behind the wheel.
"I said: sir, stop the car! That's when it got scary," she said. "He accelerates and I'm like: sir, your picture doesn't match the face on my phone."
They only drove a few yards down the road when Brown said she turned to her 12-year-old daughter.
"I'm like: oh, the door is open. I'm about to jump out. Aaralyn you're going to jump with me and I jumped out. Again, the car slowed down, I'm not up here like 'Avengers' but I had my baby and I'm going to protect her," said Brown.
Brown said the driver slowed down but never stopped.
After they got out of the car, she said he kept driving.
She then noticed the trip had been canceled on her phone.
But Brown managed to take a screen shot of the trip and sent it to Lyft to investigate.
"I was scared at first because I didn't know what was going to happen," said Aaralyn. "I just got out and I thought maybe he would come back later."
In the days following the incident Brown said she's fearful the strange man will return.
"That person knows where exactly we live. That's the frightening part," she said.
Brown is concerned about whether the registered Lyft driver may have allowed someone else to drive in their place.
"If that is the case tell me that. Don't keep going if I tell you that's not the person," she said. "I wasn't going to wait and see what was going to happen because today there is story after story with craziness."
Brown reached out to Duncanville police and Lyft.
Lyft is investigating the incident.
The company sent NBC 5 the following statement:
"The safety of the Lyft community is our top priority, and we take these reports very seriously. We permanently deactivated the driver following the report of the incident, have since followed up with the passenger to extend our support, and have reached out to law enforcement to assist with any investigation into the matter."
