October sees rash of Lyft/Uber drivers robbed or carjacked in Minneapolis
By Crime Watch MN, October 20, 2021
Since roughly October 1st, we have posted over a dozen reports of Uber or Lyft ride service drivers being robbed or carjacked, and many of those reports have included assaults on the drivers and the use of guns in the robberies.
In just the last seven days (since Oct. 14), we’ve reported ten such incidents that have been aired on police dispatch. And these are just the ones we heard or know about. There have been no public crime alerts issued by the City of Minneapolis or the Minneapolis Police Department that we are aware of.
We reported at least three carjackings of ride service drivers on Sunday, all of them occurring in less than one hour between approximately 10:40 and 11:30 p.m. in north Minneapolis. The incident locations stretched from 51st and Irving Avenue North to Lowry and James Avenues North and to West Broadway Avenue and Penn Avenue North.
On Tuesday, October 19, we reported four carjackings of Lyft drivers. Three of them were in north Minneapolis, and one was in south Minneapolis near the Village Market at 912 East 24th Street.
In one of those incidents, one of our followers contacted us Tuesday night and said their mother was one of the drivers carjacked and they needed help finding her. They let us know that she was eventually located in a local hospital being treated for her injuries.
Both Lyft and Uber have policies that generally prohibit their drivers from carrying most types of self defense weapons, even if they are legally allowed to do so by law.
The no weapons policy also extends to passengers of those services. However, in many of the carjacking incidents, it has been aired that the passengers have been the robbers or carjackers, indicating that there is no way to enforce such a policy in order to protect the ride service drivers.
In addition to no public crime alerts being issued by officials, no local mainstream media have reported on these recent incidents either.
List of incidents that we’ve reported since September 30:
We will continue to report about these incidents as they develop. Make sure to follow us here on Medium as well as on Patreon, Twitter and our several Facebook pages that are specific to areas of Minneapolis, St. Paul and the greater Twin Cities.
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