OLD TOWN — A disabled military veteran says a Chicago Uber driver stole her camera and thousands of images from her deployment as well as other belongings left in the back seat of his car.
Along with the irreplaceable images that were on memory cards, Laleña Heathington — who was visiting Chicago from Indianapolis — said the driver took nearly $2,700 worth of stuff from her Tuesday.
"That's not just stealing from me," said Heathington, who was injured while serving in Iraq.
"Those are pictures that I could have given to those soldiers' families, my Army brothers and sisters," she paused, her eyes tearing up. "I'd rather have the pictures than the actual memories that I relive."
Uber said it is investigating the situation and says the driver was suspended pending the outcome.
"This rider's allegations are concerning and we are working with police to get to the bottom of this," Uber spokeswoman Brooke Anderson said. "Following the complaint, the driver was immediately suspended from the platform and will remain so while we investigate."
Heathington, 36, and 8-year-old son Daniel arrived in Chicago on Saturday for a two-week vacation leading up to a wedding. She had just purchased a new camera to use on the trip and, later, for college classes in Indianapolis. She also brought lenses and memory cards.
Looking back, Heathington said in an interview with DNAinfo Chicago Thursday, she could see the signs her Uber driver might have had ulterior motives. She's unsure whether the driver was the same person depicted on her Uber app (Uber said after the fact that it was, although he had recently grown a beard).
He was also very inquisitive. He asked about her many shopping bags, the result of a trip to a Kohl's in Bucktown for dresses for the upcoming wedding, as well as a few extra travel items.
When he found out she was a photographer, he asked whether she'd taken any photos in Chicago. She said "yes" — that very day, in fact.
"That was stupid, because that tells him I have my equipment. Afterward, I understood more of what was going on," Heathington said.
Then again, she was new to Uber.
"The injury that I sustained in Iraq left me with a seizure disorder. So Uber for me, was fantastic, because it gave me my autonomy," she said.
The driver parked his white Toyota Prius across the street from Heathington's destination, a Whole Foods Market at 1550 N. Kingsbury St. It was around 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday, she said.
She asked the driver to wait while she picked up a few things and tipped him $20 in advance. She got out of the car and turned around to get her bags.
That's when she said the driver slammed into her, knocking her toward the street, and jumped back in his car, driving away with her belongings in the back seat.
Her thoughts went immediately to her son.
"That was the only thing I was worried about, because I didn't know if Daniel had gotten out of the car. I didn't know if [the driver] was trying to abduct my son," Heathington said. Thankfully, she saw the boy standing across from her after the car drove away.
Chicago Police said Heathington reported going into Whole Foods and returning to find the vehicle gone, and clothing and electronics missing.
In a statement, police officials said Heathington said she "placed her personal belongings in the rear seat of a vehicle used as a 'private taxi.' The victim went inside an establishment and requested the driver wait for her. Upon returning, the private taxi was gone. ... The victim reported clothing and electronics had been taken. No further information is available at this time."
The statement did not include her account of being pushed from the car.
Uber said the driver that responded to her request via the app was indeed the one who picked her up. It confirmed that the trip was between the Kohl's and Whole Foods.
But the company says it has a record from the driver's GPS that the car was parked outside the Whole Foods for 17 minutes before he left when she didn't come back out. The driver also emailed Uber later to say he had found a Kohl's shopping bag with jeans inside but didn't know which passenger had left it, Uber said.
Heathington said she froze her credit card and sent reports and emails to Uber soon after. A Chicago police detective was very helpful, she said, but the ride-sharing company has been less so.
"Thus far, I've corresponded at a snail's pace with Uber," she said. Initially, after sending messages under various categories on Uber's website, like "I lost an item" or "I had the wrong driver," she received responses explaining how to retrieve a lost item from a driver.
Uber said it has been in contact with Heathington repeatedly over the last 48 hours and said it is working with police. It said her complaints of losing something were responded to within minutes.
The ride-sharing company also said that Heathington first indicated the incident was non-violent, but only later said he had forcibly removed her from the car and threw her on the ground.
Heathington said she's scarred by the whole affair.
"This experience is never going to go away. To me, it's like you can't see the visible scars, but the mental scars will be there for the rest of my life," Heathington said.
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