Jeremiah Payne Says Lyft Denied Service Due to Racism

Jeremiah Payne’s dramatic summer continued this week as he released footage on Tuesday of what he claimed to be an incident of racism where a black Lyft driver refused to accept Payne and his family as passengers as they had not disclosed that they were taking a dog with them on the ride.

The video began with Payne already confronting the Lyft driver who was out of his vehicle. Payne was screaming at the man and the man responded that he was not obligated to take the dog in his car as it was his personal vehicle.

Samantha Payne interjected that the dog, Skittles, was a service animal and that he was required to take him on the ride. The man objected to this and Jeremiah Payne began to shout at the man that he needed to quit Lyft if he would not follow the company’s guidelines or federal or state law.

Jeremiah Payne jumped directly to accusing the man of being a racist and said that he was using any excuse to deny a white family a ride. The man screamed back at Jeremiah that he was “half white.”

Payne escalated things further and the man got into his face, with both men daring each other to make the first move. As the man was now standing in Payne’s yard, he demanded that the man leave his property. The man responded by asking why Payne was shaking and Payne said he was “always shaking” and that “gay mother fuckers like that shit, don’t they?”

The man began to retreat and there was a jump cut to a Clarksville, Tennessee, police vehicle arriving on scene. Text appeared at that point, which read, “so the clarsville tyrants show up and try to say I was the one at flaut even though he wanted to fight over a serive dog and stepped in my yard at me watch the police say I’m at flaut”.

Payne would later explain to the officer that his dog, Skittles, was actually his wife’s service animal and that her insurance ordered a Lyft medical ride on her behalf to take her to the doctor.

It should be noted that in the few appearances of Skittles on Payne’s channel, no member of the Payne family has ever described Skittles as a service dog. Furthermore, Skittles is usually seated in a wagon and had never been shown acting as a service dog.

The female officer asked if Payne had recorded the incident. Payne said he had a few seconds of it and a partial replay of the verbal altercation was shown. Following a jump cut, the officer is shown walking back to her vehicle with new text displayed on the screen reading: “she said I was at fault not the asshole who jumped out of his car and wanted to fight” and “proof police don’t give a shit if you record them they rather you get killed than do their fucking job”.

Payne flipped the officer off as she drove off, saying that he wished all Clarksville Police Officers would have a bad day.

After another jump cut, Payne would attempt to explain the situation. He said that the driver was in the wrong as the driver does not have the right by both Federal and state law to deny the ride based on the dog.

He said that the “nosey assed neighbors” called the police while the Lyft driver was present and that they wanted to see him get killed by Clarksville police. He also claimed that he had multiple cameras around his home that recorded unspecified black people expressing racist comments towards white people.

Digging deeper, he said that white people are never “racist” against black people, but black people are always “racist” against white people. He said that since the police officer was black and the Lyft driver was black, the officer would never side with him as a white person.

Payne continued to rant about the incident, claiming that the “racist cop” was in the wrong and that he would be suing the police officer for “derilation of duty.” He told all of the members to “Kiss my mother fucking ass” before saying “fuck you all” and ending the video.

If the Lyft driver indeed denied the ride because of the presence of a service animal, it may be one of the few times where Payne actually has a legitimate lawsuit.

https://help.lyft.com/hc/en-us/all/articles/115013080048-Service-animal-policy

According to Lyft’s policies, drivers should not deny service animals as it is a violation of federal law to refuse service based on the presence of a service animal.

Their guidelines state: “If a driver refuses a rider with a service animal, the driver could face immediate and permanent deactivation if an investigation into the alleged denial verifies a wrongful denial.”

However, drivers can question riders as to whether or not their animals are actual service animals. Again, according to Lyft’s guidelines, they’re allowed to ask the following questions:

1. Is the animal required because of a disability?
2. What work or task has the animal been trained to perform?

The guidelines also state, “Some passengers use service animals for reasons that aren’t obvious, like epilepsy or heart conditions. Not all service animals wear tags, and they come in all shapes and sizes. For these reasons, it’s best that you accommodate animals when they’re reported to you by riders as being service animals.”

It’s unclear from the clips shown in Payne’s video if the driver expressed these concerns or followed Lyft’s policies in dealing with the Payne family’s insistence that Skittles was a service animal.