An Uber driver has turned himself in after allegedly shooting and killing a late-night food-delivery customer over the weekend in Atlanta, Georgia….
An Uber driver has turned himself in after allegedly shooting and killing a late-night food-delivery customer over the weekend in Atlanta, Georgia.
Robert Bivines, 36, made an UberEats delivery late Saturday before witnesses said he exchanged words with and then shot the 30-year-old male customer, Ryan Thornton, multiple times.
Police said shots were fired from the delivery vehicle, a white Volkswagen, striking Thornton. The driver then drove away, police said.
But he surrendered on Monday and arrested and transported to jail for booking on charges related to the murder, according to a spokeswoman with the Atlanta Police Department.
“We are shocked and saddened by this senseless act of violence and our hearts go out to Ryan’s friends and family,” Andrew Hasbun, an Uber spokesman, said in an email. The company worked with Atlanta police and cut off the driver’s access the app before he turned himself in.
UberEats uses the ride-hailing service’s drivers to deliver meals ordered from restaurants. The business is “absolutely exploding,” Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi told the DLD tech conference in Munich last month. He predicted UberEats will be the largest food-delivery company in the world this year.
Bivines passed an UberEats background check and had been a driver for the food delivery service for about a week, according to the company.
Uber has come under fire for its driver screenings before. Two years ago, the company agreed to settle claims by California prosecutors that its background checks weren’t as thorough as advertised and failed to weed out ex-convicts.
The 2016 settlement was reached months after police arrested and charged Uber driver Jason Brian Dalton with fatally shooting six people between picking up passengers in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
