Lyft driver survived a barrage of bullets on a Fairmount street corner

A shooter opened fire on a Lyft driver Wednesday morning as the man sat in his car waiting to pick up a passenger in the city’s Fairmount neighborhood, police said.

The driver, 42, suffered a graze wound to the back as a dozen bullets were fired into his car just after 3 a.m. near the corner of 24th and Poplar Streets, police said.

Police officers transported him to Jefferson University Hospital, where he was admitted in stable condition, authorities said. No arrest had been made in the case, which is being investigated by the Police Department’s Shooting Investigation Group, which handles nonfatal shootings.

“Safety is fundamental to Lyft and the incident described is terrifying,” a spokesperson for San Francisco-based Lyft said Wednesday. “We’re in touch with the driver to offer our support and have reached out to law enforcement to assist with their investigation.” .

Founded in 2012, Lyft Inc. operates a mobile app offering ride-hailing vehicles for hire, motorized scooters, a bicycle-sharing system, rental cars, and food delivery. It operates in 644 cities in this country.

Lyft’s drivers and those of Uber, its chief ride-share competitor, have been victims of deadly attacks in Philadelphia last September, in Pittsburgh last month, and in the Washington suburbs, also last month.

The Wednesday attack on the Lyft driver, whose name was not released, comes at a time when carjackings and shootings are on the rise in the city. As of Tuesday, homicides were up 10% compared with the same time last year, 98 vs. 89, according to the Police Department.

There had been 384 shootings so far this year, compared with 360 at the same time last year, according to city data.

Police reported last month that the 140 carjackings in the city this year were double the year-to-date total from 2021 and seven times the pace reported at the beginning of 2020.

A neighbor who was walking her dog on the block where the Lyft driver had been shot said the neighborhood had recently experienced an uptick in violent crime.

“I’ve lived here for 20 years, and this year things just seem to have increased considerably,” said the 76-year-old woman, who declined to give her name out of concern for her safety. “About six weeks ago there were two separate carjackings up on Parrish Street and 24th, and we had someone robbed by the mailbox about a month ago,” she said.

Despite the spate of violence, she said, “I’ll stay here. It’s a wonderful neighborhood.”