‘She’s getting violent’: Miami doctor suspended after attack on Uber driver

By Lindsey Bever

A Florida doctor (who is reported to have Guyanese roots)  has been put on administrative leave after the emergence of a video that appears to show her hitting, kicking and screaming profanities at an Uber driver, a hospital spokeswoman confirmed to the Miami Herald.

Anjali Ramkissoon, a fourth-year neurology resident within the Jackson Health System, was removed from clinical duties following Sunday’s incident, and hospital officials have launched an internal investigation.

“The outcome of the investigation will determine whether any disciplinary action will be taken, up to and including termination,” Jackson Health System said in a statement to The Washington Post.

The video, which was posted Tuesday on YouTube, shows a woman in white shorts and a long-sleeved orange shirt confronting an Uber driver in a parking lot in downtown Miami. It’s unclear who filmed the incident but it was posted by someone on a YouTube account with the username Juan Cinco.

A narrative published with the video — which has not been verified by authorities — claims the Uber driver pulled up to accept one or more passengers when the woman allegedly got into the car and refused to leave. It states the people he was to pick up told him it was fine, but he did not want to drive the woman.

The woman reportedly became hostile. In the video, the driver asked bystanders to call police.

“She’s getting violent,” the driver told them.

“Call 911,” the woman replied. “Oh yeah, call 911.”

For a few minutes, the driver appeared to be holding the woman’s hands to keep her from hitting him. Then, she took a swing at him.

“Get some help,” the driver told her.

Moments later, the woman kicked him. He pushed her to the ground and ran to his car.

The woman followed him, jumping into the passenger side seat and yelling profanities.

“Get the f— in the car,” she said.

After the attack, the woman can be seen sitting in the driver’s vehicle, tossing papers, a pair of scissors and then a smartphone from the car window.

The driver stood outside the vehicle on the phone with a 911 operator.

“She attacked me,” he told the dispatcher. “I have bruises all over me.”

Once the ground was littered with the driver’s belongings, the woman got out of the car and walked away.

“I guess that’s it,” she said. “Goodnight.”

By (this) morning, the video had been viewed more than 1.4 million times.

Police responded to the scene but did not file a report, Miami police spokeswoman Frederica Burden told the Miami Herald.

“We were called for a disturbance,” she told the newspaper. “There was no report written, and there will be no investigation.”

In the narrative that accompanied the video, the YouTube user wrote that the woman also allegedly became hostile with police officers at the scene, though authorities have not verified that claim.

“It was only when they put her in the police car that she started crying, apologizing and claiming that she would lose her medical license (she claimed to be a neurologist) if she got arrested,” according to the narrative. “The Uber driver was too good of a person and decided to take a cash settlement instead of pressing charges.”

The confrontation followed a similar incident in Southern California in October, when a corporate Taco Bell executive viciously attacked an Uber driver — an assault that police said was captured on a dashboard camera.

Benjamin Golden was arrested on assault and disorderly conduct charges — and then dismissed from his job with the fast-food giant — after video of the assault went viral. Golden later said that he was “sincerely sorry” and that the video “was hard to watch, and I’m ashamed.”

Golden has since sued the driver for US$5 million, claiming that the recording was made without his consent, according to the Los Angeles Times. (Reprinted from ‘News India Times’)