INDIANAPOLIS — IMPD officers arrested a 37-year-old woman Saturday evening after she allegedly threatened a rideshare driver and fired shots into the air near where kids were playing basketball.
IMPD officers responded to a call from Kathryn Givens, a Lyft driver who drove to a parking lot on the southeast side of Indianapolis.
“I never thought that I would be held at gunpoint," Givens said. "I also never thought that I would be in a vehicle with somebody who was shooting out of a window, and it's impacted me in a way I don't even want to drive, I don't want to drive for them and I don't trust people."
According to court documents, Givens said she went to pick up a rider, later identified as 37-year-old Keirra Garrett, of Indianapolis, at South Lynhurst Drive and Kentucky Avenue near an apartment complex on the southwest side of Indianapolis around 5 p.m. on May 11.
Givens said she picked up Garrett and her daughter when the woman allegedly asked the driver to pick up her 12-year-old son at the basketball courts in the apartment complex.
When they got to the basketball courts, Givens said she saw the 12-year-old boy arguing with other kids, and Garrett asked her son to get in the car.
As Givens was driving away, she said Garrett rolled down the passenger window and started shooting a gun in the air and allegedly said, "They aren't going to mess with him that way. That's my son."
According to court documents, Givens said she was about to call 911, but Garrett allegedly pointed the gun at her stomach and said, "F****** leave or I'm going to just kill you right here."
"She turned her gun and told me to basically get out of there or I was next, and so I took off," Givens said.
Givens told police she drove Garrett and her kids to the 8800 block of Shadow Ridge Lane, near Southeastern Avenue and South Franklin Road. While driving there, she said Garrett was hitting her 12-year-old son with one hand, while holding the gun against the driver's stomach with the other hand.
Givens told police that when they got to the destination, Garrett got out of the car and started hitting a car in the parking lot with her gun.
Officers arrived to the 8800 block of Shadow Ridge Lane and took Garrett into custody.
Givens positively identified Garrett at the scene.
“I felt very nervous," Givens said. "I was afraid for my life. I was also afraid for her son, you know, she was beating the tar out of him, and I was concerned that if I didn't do what she wanted, I was gonna get shot myself.”
When taken to Marion County jail, Garrett allegedly said that she knew where the Lyft driver lived and would find her.
Detectives applied for and were granted a search warrant for an apartment where Garrett was dropped off. According to court documents, detectives found a handgun in a shoe box in a bedroom.
Prosecutors charged Garrett with criminal confinement while armed with a deadly weapon, criminal recklessness, intimidation and pointing a firearm at another.
Her initial court hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, May 15.
A Lyft spokesperson provided the following statement to 13News regarding the incident:
"Safety is fundamental to Lyft, and the behavior described is reprehensible and has no place in the Lyft community or society. We have permanently removed the rider from the Lyft community, contacted the driver to offer support, and stand ready to assist law enforcement with any investigation."
Anyone with additional information on the incident is asked to call Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana at 317-262-8477.