A Cleveland Uber driver was hit with glass filling his lap after his car took at least five bullet holes early on Aug. 9, and now he is out of work, afraid, and waiting for answers. The man, who asked that his name not be shared, was driving on Green Road near Ridgehill Road on the city's East Side around 1:30 a.m. when he heard roughly 15 shots that sounded like they came from an automatic or semi-automatic weapon.
Neither the driver nor his passenger was hit, but the damage to his car was extensive, according to News 5 Cleveland. Bullets tore through the driver's door, damaged the wires and radiator, and left his nearly new 2025 vehicle waiting on repairs. He told the station he saw six to eight children standing on a corner nearby as the shots rang out, and the shooting should not happen to anybody for no reason, he said.
Driver Flags Down Officer, Frustrated by Silence Since
Rattled but uninjured, the driver did not speak to 911 himself. Instead, he flagged down a police officer on Euclid Avenue and later filed a report with Cleveland police in the 5th District, which is headquartered at 881 East 152nd Street and covers eastern neighborhoods including Collinwood and Glenville. Cleveland police have described the case only as an ongoing investigation, and the driver said he is frustrated by the lack of progress since.
He did eventually call 911 as well, and according to the driver, callers were left on hold for about five minutes during the incident. News 5 Cleveland has filed a public records request for the 911 call but says it has not yet received it. Police told the driver he was lucky someone was looking after him, he said, and he now says he fears retaliation as he searches for information leading to whoever opened fire.
A Pattern of Violence Against Cleveland's Rideshare Drivers
The Green Road shooting is the latest in a string of attacks on rideshare drivers across Cleveland and Cuyahoga County this year. In April, Cleveland police arrested an 18-year-old in connection with the shooting and carjacking of a 41-year-old Uber driver who was shot in the face on the East Side, a case the driver survived after hospitalization.
Earlier in 2026, two Lyft drivers were killed within roughly 36 hours of each other. On Feb. 8, 56-year-old Antoine Latham was fatally shot in the head during an attempted robbery in the Woodland Hills neighborhood, leading to the indictment of 20-year-old Derrek Dove on aggravated murder charges, according to the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office. Latham crashed his car into a guardrail after being shot. Two days later, 27-year-old Ukrainian refugee and Lyft driver Vasyl Shvets was fatally shot on East 84th Street, a case in which two teenagers were later indicted, as reported by WKYC.
Just three days before the Green Road shooting, two 17-year-olds were arrested after allegedly carjacking an Uber driver at gunpoint in nearby Cleveland Heights and leading police on a chase that ended near Interstate 271, with no injuries reported, as Hoodline detailed in its report on the Cleveland Heights carjacking chase.
App Anonymity Cited as a Vulnerability
Prosecutors revealed in July that suspects in local rideshare robberies have exploited app anonymity, having third parties order rides from out of state to bypass driver screening, per WKYC's reporting on the Shvets indictment. Uber says it requires multistep driver background checks and uses rider verification systems that cross-check passenger account information against third-party databases to assign verified badges, occasionally prompting riders for government IDs or selfies when automated checks fail, according to the company's own safety materials.
Even as these attacks mount, state officials have pushed to expand rideshare use for public safety reasons. In May, the Ohio Traffic Safety Office launched Project Plan Ahead, offering $15 Uber and Lyft ride credits across Cuyahoga County during high-risk holidays to reduce impaired-driving fatalities. Meanwhile, Cuyahoga County accepted proposals in July for a federally funded Comprehensive Safety Action Plan backed by $600,000 to identify dangerous corridors and reduce transportation-related deaths countywide, with work scheduled through 2028.
The Green Road shooting site sits on Cleveland's eastern municipal border next to South Euclid, in a residential corridor where the city installed radar speed feedback signs in 2022. For now, the driver at the center of this latest shooting remains sidelined from work, his car in the shop, and the investigation into who fired those roughly 15 shots still open.
