Jason Ackley Phoenix passenger who sucker punched Jonathan Carroll Uber driver turns self in after dash-cam video of assault goes viral.
An Uber passenger captured on dash-cam video sucker punching his driver following an argument about the pick-up location over the weekend has turned himself into police after the footage went viral.
Jason Ackley, 38, verbally assaulted Uber driver, Jonathan Carroll circa 3am, Sunday morning on West Baseline Rd, Laveen, in Phoenix, Arizona after Carroll told him to get out of the car for ‘being a d***’.
A stunned Ackley in turn punched Carroll in the back of the head, as dash-cam video showed the driver managing to stay surprisingly calm amid the lashing.
‘I got you on dash cam, dude,’ Carroll tells him.
Deputies in Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office were investigating the incident when Ackley turned himself. They booked him into jail and charged him with assault.
Keeping emotions in check
‘You can’t do stuff like that, you gotta control your emotions, and he didn’t, and unfortunately, he’s going to have to pay the price for it,’ Carroll said afterwards during an interview with AZFamily.
Officers say he told investigators he was ‘intoxicated and upset…the victim refused to transport him.’
The dash-cam footage initially illustrates some confusion between Carroll and Jason Ackley before they finally locate one another as the incident unfolded.
‘So it [the app] had you way down there next to the freeway,’ Carroll tells Ackley when he gets in the car.
‘That’s odd,’ Ackley chuckles. ‘You just don’t know how to get there, that’s all it is. It’s that simple – it shows me here, and you got lost. That’s all it is.’
Carroll denied getting lost and the two disagree over it but just as the passenger says ‘don’t worry’, Carroll tells him to get out.
‘Why?’ Ackley retorts in the video.
When the customer isn’t always right
‘I’m not doing it now because you’re being a d***!’
‘You really won’t drive me home bro,’ he said.
‘No I won’t,’ Carroll responded.
‘Wow, all right.’
With Carroll adamant that he would not drive Ackley home, the passenger proceeded to get out of the car only to become verbally abusive, before raining blows to the back of Carroll’s head.
Once out of the car, he kicked and punched it as Carroll drove away in disbelief.
‘I’ve never felt like my life was threatened by anybody’
Carroll told Fox 10 Phoenix that it was the first time anything like this had happened during his eight years on the job.
‘The vast majority of the time, I don’t have any issues with people. I’ve never felt like my life was threatened by anybody,’ Carroll said, who has been driving for Uber for eight years and done 13,000 plus rides.
‘I was pretty calm during the entire thing. I didn’t shout obscenities or anything or even remotely start throwing punches or anything like that, and it just escalated, and he started sucker-punching me.’
‘I seemed pretty calm throughout the entire ordeal – shockingly,’ Carroll later wrote on Facebook.
‘Nothing like getting sucker punched and a dude missing you on nearly every punch from a foot away. I don’t have any bruising.
‘I wanted to get out and go head-to-head with this guy, but in the back of my mind, I’ve seen and read stories where Uber has actually fired drivers for retaliating (even though it would’ve been self-defense).
‘I also thought…this is a complete stranger and he could have a gun or a knife and my life may have been over this morning.
‘I agree though, still don’t know how I was able to remain calm during the entire ordeal.’
In a statement, Uber wrote: ‘It’s disturbing to watch the attack against the driver. Violence of any kind is not tolerated on the platform and the rider has been deactivated. We stand ready to assist law enforcement with their investigation.’
