A Lyft driver described the scariest drive of his life trying to escape two masked gunmen shooting at his car with a passenger inside.
He somehow managed to get away after being shot in the back.
The shooting happened outside Kush 21, a marijuana dispensary on Ambaum Boulevard South in Burien.
“Two guys open the door with a mask,” said Lyft driver Mustapha Tahiri. “And their guns.”
It was to be a $10 ride. It was just about 10:30 Monday night.
Tahiri said nothing seemed unusual. “No,” he said. “It was like normal.”
His passenger gets into the car and suddenly the two men are firing at them both.
“And the guy, you know, maybe he knows them,” Tahiri said. “Maybe he’s involved in something. So, he told me, ‘They gonna kill me. Save my life.’ And I hear like shots, like shooting.”
He said he hardly knew what to do.
“So, I need to save my,” his voice faltered. “And passenger because he’s like 18, 20 years old, he needs life, too.”
So he took off.
“I drove like crazy,” he said. “So, it’s like life or death.”
The Lyft driver said the gunmen appeared to be after his passenger and he was caught in the crossfire.
He told us he just kept driving until he felt they were safe. He and his passenger ended up at this Shell Gas station here in Burien, three-tenths of a mile away, narrowly escaping with their lives.
Mustapha counted, he says, 16 bullet holes in his car.
King County sheriff’s deputies are calling him a hero. He said that’s what they told him today.
He believes God spared his passenger’s life, his life, too.
“I have two kids, you know, they’re still like you know, like babies, family, friends, passenger, wife, life,” he said, “(I’m) still young.”
One of his daughters turned seven the day after the attack.
Tahiri said his passenger just took off and never tried to help the wounded driver, and never called the police.
He said he desperately needed money to support his family. But he won’t drive for Lyft again.
He is having nightmares. And he no longer feels safe.
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