DoorDash Cuts Ties With Delivery Driver Who Sped Through a Group of Protesters on Capitol Hill

On Tuesday night, a disturbing video was circulated on Twitter that showed a truck barreling through an intersection near the I-5 express overpass on Capitol Hill on Boren Ave, nearly hitting several protesters who were gathered in the street.

According to eyewitness Joey Wieser (who took the video footage), the car was weaving past other vehicles to get by, when it then passed through the intersection recklessly on Boren Ave. “One bicyclist was shaken up, and the bike is totaled, but there were no physical injuries, thankfully,” says Wieser. More eyewitness accounts can be found on this livestream (starting at around the 45-minute mark).

The driver of the truck was later identified by online sleuths as a DoorDash delivery worker named Dave Lawrence, who not only sped off and ran through a red light on the corner of Pike Street, as shown in the video, but then allegedly told the customer he was delivering food to about the incident and posted messages on Facebook about what happened.

According to screenshots of the Facebook posts (which were later deleted), Lawrence said, “Establish dominance from the beginning by telling your date that you run over protesters when they illegally block the road.”

When reached for comment, a DoorDash spokeswoman would not confirm that the driver in question was Lawrence, but did confirm that the driver was a delivery worker for the company, stating, “At DoorDash, we take the safety of our community extremely seriously. Immediately upon being notified of this horrific crime, we deactivated the Dasher from our platforms and reached out to the customer to thank them for bringing this to our attention. We have also reached out to local law enforcement to cooperate in any ongoing investigation.”

When reached at the number listed for his gardening business, a person who identified himself as Lawrence confirmed to Eater Seattle that he was the driver for the vehicle and that he was in the middle of delivering an order for DoorDash when the incident occurred.

“I’m not saying what I did was right, but what they did wasn’t right either,” he says. “I honked my horn continuously for two minutes, but they wouldn’t get out of the way ... All I was trying to do was make a living. Am I not allowed to do that? They get the right of way all the time? If they want to protest, take it to City Hall or somewhere else. They were making it impossible to pass.”

Lawrence claims he called the police after the incident and tried to find out if anyone was hurt. According to him, the police said there were no reports of injuries and they have not taken any further action at this point. “They have my number,” he says. As for the Facebook post about “establishing dominance” on a date, he says, “It was a joke.”

Wieser says that a neighbor, who witnessed the incident from her window, ended up calling the cops, and a police officer showed up at the Paramount Theater, where the protesters were later gathered. But, when asked if they wanted assistance following up on the incident, Wieser says organizers declined.

Calls to the Seattle Police Department weren’t returned before this piece was published.