Uber driver from Charlotte arrested after report of rape during rideshare
An Uber driver was arrested and removed from the rideshare platform after a woman in Matthews reported being sexually assaulted on her ride home.
Officers met the woman at a hospital early Saturday morning, according to a Matthews Police Department news release. Vicente Diaz-Gomez, 45, of Charlotte, was charged with 2nd degree rape, according to a Matthews Police Department news release sent Tuesday.
“The Matthews Police Department has been in contact with Uber representatives and provided notification of this investigation,” police said. Diaz-Gomez was arrested by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police and taken into custody in Mecklenburg, the release said.
Uber said it has developed various safety measures on its app in recent years, including an emergency button that can be tapped to contact 911.
“This monstrous behavior has no place on the Uber platform,” an Uber spokesperson told The Charlotte Observer in an email. “We take reports of this nature very seriously and immediately removed the driver’s access to the app after this was reported to us. We look forward to assisting law enforcement with their investigation.”
Uber’s separate RideCheck safety feature detects that a trip is taking longer than planned and sends notifications to the driver and passenger to see if everything is OK, according to the company. A spokesperson corrected an earlier statement from the company that RideCheck activated in the Matthews incident.
And riders can designate up to five friends and family members as Trusted Contacts to be prompted to share trip details with them during every ride or night-time trips.
Once a trip starts, riders can use Uber’s Share My Trip feature in the app to share the driver’s name, photo, license plate and location with a friend or family member who can then follow the trip in real-time.
This story was originally published October 18, 2022 at 11:34 AM.
