Chicago police, Uber and Lyft warned against the driver who killed the taxi driver

A Chicago lawyer claims that he was beaten by a cab driver last summer a few weeks before the driver was accused of having kicked a taxi driver deadly.

Attorney Scott Gore was in the man's car on a ride with the Lyft telephone company (the driver was working for Uber and Lyft). A fight ensued and Gore stepped out of the car at a red light. The driver too.

"He said to me," Do you want to fight? "And I replied," You hit me and I'm going to sue you, "and he hit me," Gore told the Chicago Sun-Times on Monday.

Gore said he reported the July 1 incident to Uber and Lyft and filed a police report. An inspector contacted him six weeks later to ask him to identify him, but by then Gore had taken a flawless approach.

"I was trying to be a nice guy and I thought the guy had a bad day," he said. "But he was actually a violent person, and if he had been fired, that taxi driver would still be alive."

In hindsight, Gore would have liked to be more proactive in his dealings with the police.

"If I had a creaky wheel and called the cops every day and said," Look, I really want someone to call me back. I am on."

Photo provided

Four weeks later, the same driver was working for Uber by the time he had a road conflict just west of downtown, which resulted in a kick to Anis Tungekar's head. Tungekar, 64, died two days later and the Cook County Medical Examiner's office said his death was a homicide.

Gore's charges are detailed in a civil suit filed Monday by the Tungekar family against Uber, who is claiming $ 10 million in compensation for negligently hiring and hiring the driver. The driver, Fangqi Lu, is also named as a defendant.

"Uber's business model is designed to put profits ahead of people," said lawyer Mike Gallagher, representative of the Tungekar family. "As a result, they knowingly allowed a violent person to continue acting as a driver and my client paid with his life."

Lu, 30, was arrested immediately after the incident but was released and then fled to China.

Chicago police had recommended that prosecutors accuse Lu of a crime, but state prosecutor's review unit Felony refused to approve the charges, claiming additional investigative work was necessary.

A warrant for first-degree murder was issued on December 26, but Lu had already fled the country.

"Now that he is in China … we have to work with the State Department on this," police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told Sun-Times earlier. "And currently, there is no extradition" between the United States and China.

In March, Tungekar's family sued the Cook County Attorney's Office for disclosing documents that could help explain why charges were not filed. This costume is waiting.

"The allegations described are extremely worrying. Security is fundamental to Lyft and there is absolutely no place in the Lyft community for violence of any kind, "said a spokeswoman for Lyft. "As soon as this incident occurred in July, Lyft immediately deactivated the driver and contacted the passenger to offer his support. We are ready to help the forces of order. "

Uber spokespeople and the Cook County prosecutor's office did not immediately respond to requests for comments on Monday.