Uber Driver Cleared of Criminal Charges After Fatal Shooting

He may have lost his ability to drive for Uber, but a Texas man won’t be losing his freedom after a grand jury determined that he was acting in self-defense when he fatally shot a man in Galveston in late June. 

Galveston Police Chief Doug Balli says the shooting of Patrick William Wright happened after he confronted an Uber driver who was trying to turn his vehicle around to get to his customer. 

A witness told police Wright had stood in front of a blue Honda, read aloud the license plate number and shouted “something along the lines of ‘This is G-Town,’” before lunging through the driver’s window, according to court documents.

“In that altercation, the Uber driver pulls out a gun, and it continues to escalate,” Balli said. “He shoots and ultimately mortally wounds the victim.”

The witness heard two gunshots and ran back into a vacation rental and got a friend who is a nurse and performed CPR on Wright until Galveston police arrived, according to the document.

Police gave medical assistance, and Wright was taken to John Sealy Hospital Emergency Room, where he died, according to court documents.

This is where things get really weird. 

The armed citizen who shot Wright in self-defense ended up canceling the Uber order and drove to his home in Alvin, Texas, about 45 minutes away. 

Uber, meanwhile, assigned the ride to a man behind the wheel of another blue car. When he was on his way to pick up the customer (at what was now a crime scene), police pulled him over, erroneously believing he was the original Uber driver. They also tested him for gunshot residue; a test that turned up positive. 

The driver was arrested and charged with murder before police realized they had a couple of problems on their hands. 

It wasn’t until police searched the driver’s car days later and found dashboard camera video that they began to question whether they did indeed have the right man, Balli said.

Police became suspicious of their gunshot residue tests and tested them on four employees who shouldn’t have tested positive, some of whom had never shot a gun in their lives, Balli said. Three of the tests came back positive, Balli said.

“That’s when we found out, oh my god, these are bad,” Balli said.

As soon as they discovered it was likely a false positive gunpowder test, police requested the Galveston County District Attorney’s Office drop the charges, Balli said.

“All these little circumstances created this perfect little storm,” Balli said. “I hate that it went down the way it did.”

Police ended up subpoenaing Uber to get the name and address of the original Uber driver, who was interviewed by detectives in early July. The information they obtained from that interview, along with other witness statements and evidence from the scene, was presented to the grand jury, who returned their no-bill this week. 

The incident has resulted in one major change within the Galveston PD, which is no longer using field tests to determine if someone has gunpowder residue on them. Instead, those tests are being sent off to a lab, where the results are hopefully more accurate. This does raise a broader question about the efficacy of those tests and whether other departments should also be conducting tests to see if they’re generating a large number of false positives.

Though the Uber driver was found to be acting in self-defense and won’t face any criminal charges, because he violated the company’s “no guns allowed” policy he’s likely barred from driving for the rideshare platform in the future. Uber doesn’t care if you have a concealed carry license or can lawfully possess a gun, any more than it cares if the gun was used in a legitimate act of self-defense. Drivers (and passengers) are supposed to be disarmed, and it doesn’t matter why you had or used your firearm. This driver may have been cleared of all criminal charges, but hopefully he’s found a new source of income because he’s still persona non grata to Uber. 

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