MATTHEWS, N.C. — A woman was sexually assaulted by an Uber driver who was taking her home early Saturday morning, Matthews police said on Tuesday.
Officers said they responded just before 6 a.m. to Novant Health Matthews Medical Center for a report of a sexual assault. The victim told police she was in the Uber vehicle when the driver raped her.
“Anything with our citizens’ safety is going to be a concern to us. That’s why we obviously wanted to put it out to the public,” said Officer Tim Aycock with Matthews police.
Aycock said, Vicente Diaz-Gomez, 45, was driving for Uber and picked up a female passenger at around 3 a.m. He said on the way to her home, he pulled off somewhere in Matthews and sexually assaulted her inside the car.
According to arrest warrants obtained by Channel 9 Wednesday, the attack happened while the woman was “physically helpless and unconscious” and that the suspect knew she was physically helpless.
After detectives investigated and collected evidence, an arrest warrant was issued for Diaz-Gomez. Charlotte-Mecklenburg police arrested Diaz-Gomez in Charlotte later Saturday and charged him with second-degree rape.
According to the Mecklenburg County Jail’s website, Diaz-Gomez was released from jail early Sunday morning. He was in jail for about eight hours.
Matthews police encourages anyone who uses ride-share apps to familiarize themselves with the safety features.
“With this, we feel like it’s a two-layer part of safety. The first part is ... make sure you have the correct driver,” Aycock said. “(In) this case, it was a confirmed driver, so the second layer of that is, ‘Once I am in the car, how do I remain safe?’”
Authorities said Uber has been assisting in the investigation. The ride-share company said it removed Diaz-Gomez’s access to the service.
Seymour Josephson is president of the What’s My Name foundation. The dangers of ride sharing hit too close to home. In 2019, his daughter Samantha was murdered by a man who she though was her Uber driver.
“It’s being aware of your surroundings and what that driver is doing,” he said. “If he or she is driving erratic, or they’re acting weird, you need to hit the 911 button sooner than later.”
Uber’s app has a number of safety features. For example, “Ridecheck” helps make sure drivers and riders are OK in the event of a crash or unexpected long stop. The rider and driver both receive a notification asking if everything is OK. Uber confirms the feature was not activated in this incident.
Uber users can also use the emergency assistance button in the safety toolkit to contact 911. The “Share my trip” feature allows people to share their drive’s name, photo, license plate and location with a friend or family member so they can follow the trip in real time. “Live help” allows people to request a call or text from an ADP safety agent if they feel uncomfortable or unsafe.
Josephson advised familiarizing yourself as much as possible with these policies.
“Once you’re in the car, it really becomes making sure that you know where the 911 features are,” he said. “Maybe it’s carrying pepper spray carrying something down there that you can protect yourself and spray to defend yourself.”
Channel 9 also learned “past deportation” was written in pen next to “other relevant information” on the arrest warrant. We reached out to ICE to learn if Diaz-Gomez was in the country illegally, but have not heard back at this point.
Return to this story for updates.
Statement from Uber:
“This monstrous behavior has no place on the Uber platform. We take reports of this nature very seriously and immediately removed the driver’s access to the app after this was reported to us. We look forward to assisting law enforcement with their investigation.”
(WATCH BELOW: Wife of slain Uber driver thanks community after suspect sentenced to prison)
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