Dec. 17--Kourtney Wilson and Toni Sanders left the Winter WonderFest at Navy Pier on Tuesday evening to discover their car had been towed.
That was just the beginning of a bad night that would end with Wilson and Sanders scuffling with an Uber driver wielding an ice scraper, according to the two women and police.
"Never did I think that he was going to attack us in the middle of, you know, downtown Chicago during rush hour," Wilson, 29, said by phone Wednesday.
But the driver, Chieh Wang, 37, denied attacking her, though he did acknowledge having an argument. "I will explain to the judge in the court," he said.
Wilson said she and her friend requested an Uber ride around 6 p.m. after discovering their rental car gone. The two ducked into a Whole Foods at 255 E. Grand Ave., then Wilson went outside to meet the driver while Sanders, 32, was getting rung up.
But Wang was already starting to pull away in his Toyota Prius, Wilson said. She chased after it and knocked on the trunk. The car stopped, Wilson got inside and Wang started to leave again, she said.
Wilson said she asked Wang to wait for her friend, but he became "very agitated and didn't want to wait."
Wilson got out of the car and started to head back to Whole Foods. She said Wang left his car and asked if she wanted to fight him. She said she walked away and asked for another Uber ride. Wilson and Sanders went around the corner to wait for the new driver, and Wang drove away, she said.
But moments later, Wang returned, pulled up next to them and stepped out, Wilson said. She said she took out her phone. "I started filming him because there was no reason for him to be pulling up again."
She said Wang took an ice scraper out of his trunk, cursed and started hitting her and Sanders with it. Bystanders stepped in, telling Wang to stop, and called 911, she said.
Wilson said the scraper was about 2 feet long with a brush on one side and a scraper on the other. Wang hit them with the scraper, she said, bruising her left arm as she blocked her face. She said the scraper also cut through her clothes and left a scratch on her back.
Wilson said Wang also knocked her iPhone out of her hand, shattering the screen.
At one point, Wang tried to enter his car and Sanders blocked him from getting inside, Wilson said. One of Sanders' arms was bruised, she said.
Police arrested Wang, of the 4300 block of South Talman Avenue, and charged him with two counts of misdemeanor battery and one count of misdemeanor criminal damage to property, according to a statement from the News Affairs office.
Wang said he got into an argument after one of the women hit his car. "I didn't attack her," he said, adding that a video posted to YouTube purporting to show the attack is "just a part of the story."
He declined further comment.
Uber spokeswoman Kayla Whaling said in a statement "this type of behavior is unacceptable and is not tolerated. As soon as we were aware of this incident, we immediately removed this driver's access to Uber. We will provide any information to local law enforcement as needed for their investigation."
Whaling called the driver's behavior "disappointing," adding that Uber is "constantly listening to feedback from both riders and drivers."
Asked about Uber's screening process, Whaling referred to an Uber blog post about safety. It says Uber drivers go through a background check, including a search of national, state and local databases for convictions over the past seven years.
Wilson, who lives in the Pilsen neighborhood, said she uses the service "all of the time" because she no longer drives. "Uber has gotten hundreds of dollars from me per month," she said.
She said an Uber representative contacted her and Sanders on Tuesday night, and they were heading to Uber's office with a police report Wednesday morning.
