HALLANDALE BEACH, FLA. (WSVN) - A rideshare driver is sharing his story after witnessing a horrific scene when he picked up a passenger who made a desperate decision in his car.
A pickup quickly turned to panic for Uber driver Samuel when a suspect wanted in a double shooting that took place at a Hallandale Beach resort on Monday, hopped into his car on Wednesday with U.S. Marshals close behind.
“‘Get out of the car, get of the car,’ and then I heard ‘boom,'” he recalled. “In the beginning, I didn’t realize it was a shot.”
Those shots, Samuel said, came from someone he thought was harmless.
“It was traumatic — you didn’t know what’s going on,” said Samuel. “You know, you didn’t do anything, and you didn’t think somebody in your car seat did anything.”
Without knowing, Samuel picked up a wanted man from the Sheraton Suites in Plantation, Wednesday, who the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force — along with other agencies — had their eyes on.
“I thought they were passing me to catch somebody else,” said Samuel.
With his passenger in the backseat, Samuel began his drive when, all of a sudden, multiple agencies surrounded the SUV.
“They blocked me so I could not move, and they told me to get out of the car. I heard the shotgun,” said the driver.
His passenger, Davon Hilton, took his own life in the back of Samuel’s Nissan Rogue.
Hilton had active warrants stemming from a double shooting in Hallandale Beach that took the life of his ex-girlfriend and critically injured a man she was with on Monday.
Now, Samuel feels officials put his life in danger to capture the suspected killer.
“They knew that I had a dangerous guy in my car with a gun, and I think they put my life in danger,” he said.
He’s questioning why they chose this moment to move in.
“Why didn’t they apprehend him when he came out of the hotel,” samuel asks. “There was nobody there, or why didn’t they wait until I dropped him off? Why did they have to put my life in danger?”
Samuel said this incident has affected his driving and his mental health.
“Listen, every time I drive, and I look in the mirror, I see him in the back of the car with blood dripping. No, I’m not OK,” he said.
Samuel said he has been driving for Uber for seven years, and he said he has never had a problem before. He is now seeking treatment for his mental health.
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