MIAMI (WSVN) - A regular trip turned into a terrifying ride for a South Florida Uber driver when, police said, her passenger went on the attack, leading to a crash and the passenger’s arrest.
Speaking with 7News on Tuesday, witness Candela Navarro heard the moment the victim’s white SUV crashed into a building in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood, early Saturday morning.
“We suddenly hear this big noise, like, it was massive,” she said.
Navarro said she was driving home at the time. Moments later, she saw a man running and instantly started to record video on her phone.
Seconds later. Navarro said, she walked over to the SUV that had crashed into the building near Southwest Eighth Street and Sixth Avenue.
“We see the woman trapped inside the car. The driver’s side was completely destroyed,” she said. “She was, like, stuck inside of the car and in a state of shock that you can’t even imagine, so I immediately – the deal was to get close to the car and, like, tell her I’m going to help her. Like, I don’t care if the car maybe can explode or whatever, because the car was a mess.”
What was worse is what the witness found out from the victim as she began to help her.
“What she immediately was, ‘He tried to rape me, he tried to rape me, he tried to touch me, abuse me,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, my God,'” said Navarro.
Navarro stayed to help police, and she provided the cellphone video she recorded.
According to the report from City of Miami Police, the victim was a rideshare driver, and her passenger was 26-year-old Oscar Ernesto Sanchez Aguirre.
The report states the suspect covered the woman’s mouth and began to grope her. That is when she lost control of her SUV, hit another car and crashed into the wall of a building.
Investigators said Sanchez Aguirre tried to run away but did not get far.
In court Sunday, the suspect was charged with battery and culpable negligence resulting in injuries.
“There is probable cause on the affidavit,” said Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez during the bond hearing.
Navarro commended the survivor who was put in such a horrible situation.
“As a woman, you can’t just pump the breaks and, like, fight this guy. It’s almost impossible; like, you cannot judge her for what happened, we cannot judge her,” she said. “Like, thank God [no one] died, because it was massive, [no one] got injured. All I want is for a situation like this [to] never happen to a woman, ever again.”
Navarro told 7News that police were able to catch the suspect because he left his cellphone in the woman’s car.
“And then he called, like, he called his phone, like, yeah, it was crazy,” she said. “Thank God they caught the guy.”
Sanchez Aguirre remains behind bars on an immigration hold. His arraignment, which was initially set for Wednesday morning, was rescheduled for March 2.
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