When Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty called 9-1-1 to complain about her Lyft driver, the irony was too much for the incident to just vanish in the night. That’s because Hardesty wants to defund police. Last week, Hardesty called for an $18,000,00 cut to the Portland Police Department, claiming the police department responds to too many unnecessary 9-1-1 calls that do not involve crimes being committed.
It all started because her Lyft driver wanted to keep a window open to improve circulation in the vehicle to protect himself and his passenger from COVID-19. Hardesty would have none of that so she went into full Karen mode against the lift driver.
He pulled off the highway and into a service station and told her to get out. She refused and called the police.
“I got a Lyft driver who wants me out, but I won’t get out, all because I put the window up,” she said to a confused 9-1-1 operator who advised her that the vehicle is his private property and no crimes were committed. “I’m not going to allow him to leave me on the side of a road. I paid for a ride and he canceled it. So I’m just going to sit here until you send me another ride.”
“It’s not a crime to call the cops,” the 9-1-1 operator said. “Do you understand that only you can order another ride?”
The 9-1-1 operator advised Hardesty that it’s the Lyft driver’s right as an American to terminate a contract.
The Lyft driver, Richmond Frost also called 9-1-1 advise authorities that he had a passenger who was refusing to get out of his vehicle.
“I got a customer and I canceled the ride and I’m taking her off the freeway to this filling station so that she can order another ride,” the driver said. “She’s no longer involved or engaged with me and she’s refusing to get out of my car.”
Richmond said Frost was a passenger from hell during the portion of the trip that had been completed. Frost picked Hardesty up from Washington’s Ilani Casino Resort.
“It was totally inappropriate to expect a woman to get out of a vehicle in the dead of night,” Hardesty later said of the incident.
“She was not a pleasant person,” the driver said. “That has nothing to do with her political position as a Portland council person. I’m out here doing my job. She was very disrespectful to me, made me uncomfortable. I don’t feel like I have to sit in a car for anyone to have to argue unrelentingly and be rude and abusive, telling me what I have to do in my own vehicle.”
Frost said the entire experience started on a bad note when Hardesty made him wait five minutes at the casino because she was at a different location at the casino. When Frost called to let Hardesty know he had arrived he said, “It went south from there.”