A Tri-City cabbie rammed into his customer. The man thought he could pay with his Uber app

A Tri-City taxi driver admitted ramming his car into a customer because the man refused to pay, thinking his Uber app would cover it.

Jay W. Raymond told police that after the customer kicked and struck the outside of his cab, the driver backed the car up 5 to 10 feet and then floored the accelerator.

The customer, Dustin Wright, ended up on the cab’s hood with his left leg pinned between the car and a Ford truck.

He reportedly had to get skin graft surgery to his shin to replace a chunk of missing flesh.

Raymond, 39, pleaded guilty in Benton County Superior Court to felony vehicular assault. A second-degree assault charge will be dismissed as part of the plea.

He’s facing a recommended six months in county jail at sentencing Oct. 4. The standard range is three to nine months.

Raymond was working for RAD Cab on May 17 when he was called to Amendment XXI in Richland to pick up three men.

Wright’s friend, Jeremy Williams, told police that after the “Uber driver” dropped them off at the Shilo Inn, the driver crashed into Wright, court documents said.

Williams added that the driver yelled an obscenity at them before hitting Wright.

Richland police responded to the hotel parking lot at 2:20 a.m. for the assault, and found Wright on top of the cab’s hood. An officer tried to move the cab but had to wait for additional officers and firefighters to arrive to help Wright, documents said.

Wright’s wound was about the size of a softball. He initially was taken to Kadlec Regional Medical Center, then transferred to Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center for further treatment.

Before leaving the Tri-Cities, Wright told an officer that he and his friends had been at the gastro-pub when they got in the Uber car.

The driver started asking for payment after arriving at the hotel. Wright said he told the driver that’s not how Uber works, court documents said.

The officer told prosecutors that he explained to Wright during the interview that Raymond was a cab driver and not an Uber driver.

Raymond told investigators after his arrest that he’d been dispatched to Amendment XXI and drove the out-of-towners to the Shilo, where they refused to pay the cab fare.

“(Raymond) stated that he intended to hit, clip or make Mr. Wright roll up onto the hood of the cab, but did not intend to pin him to the truck,” documents said.

The vehicular assault charge was for driving in a reckless manner and causing substantial bodily harm to Wright.

This story was originally published September 22, 2018 at 3:56 PM.