CONYERS, Ga. — An Uber driver who helped police catch three gunmen accused of robbing and shooting a man visiting the city says he immediately knew something was wrong.
Shawn McCastle spoke to Channel 2’s Tyisha Fernandes about the frightening ordeal.
He said he picked up the three men in Conyers on Nov. 24, who turned out to be three suspects: Richard Anthony, Thomas Shatner and Reggie Green.
McCastle says the men weren't sure about where they were going. He drove them to a Days Inn in Stone Mountain, but once they got there and saw police in the parking lot, the men got nervous and asked McCastle to go to Snellville instead.
“’Hey, we want to keep you for four or five hours,’” McCastle said the men told him. “I'm saying, ‘Not me, you're not.’ I said, ‘I've never had passengers in my Uber ride that want to travel aimlessly around the town.’ I said, ‘That's just not how Uber works.’”
That’s when the Uber driver called 911. He tried to tell the operator what was happening without the suspects realizing.
He pretended to be talking to a friend on the phone and kept trying to say where he was.
He spent 20 minutes on the phone with the operator before police were able to find them.
When he told the operator he was pulling onto Newton Crest Circle, police showed up about 30 seconds later.
“I'm still having flashbacks about all the guns being drawn,” McCastle said.
He said two of the suspects jumped out of the car and ran.
“After they were in the woods, they caught them. They brought one of them back and had me identify him while he was in the back of the car,” McCastle said.
Hours later a police K-9 found the last suspect in the woods.
McCastle said he’s since spoken with Uber about adding some sort of panic button to the Uber app.