Photo Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office / Zachery Richard JohnsonEfforts to find an Uber driver who called her boyfriend Saturday night to report she was being raped by a passenger took four law enforcement agencies and three 911 emergency call centers an hour and 18 minutes, according to police.
Ooltewah resident Zachery Richard Johnson, 36, was arrested Saturday by the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office, which received a call around 9 p.m. from a man who said he believed his girlfriend had been kidnapped and was being raped.
The woman’s boyfriend had called 911 after he received a call from her saying she was being sexually assaulted by a man she had provided a ride for. He reported hearing a male voice in the background saying “Come here baby, come here baby!” followed by his girlfriend crying and screaming “I don’t want to” twice before the line cut off, according to an arrest report.
Hamilton County 911 called the victim’s phone and made several brief connections, advising officers “they could hear sounds of the Uber driver struggling and the sounds of an active assault in progress,” the arrest report said.
The driver had responded to a reservation for an Uber ride at the Chili’s on Gunbarrel Road outside Hamilton Place mall, the report said. The ride was requested and paid for by a female employee of the restaurant, who then met with the driver at the parking lot and told her the ride was for a customer who was intoxicated.