Shortly after midnight on September 23, New York 15-year-old Ryan Mullen and two 16-year-old friends loaded into an Uber.
They’d been out drinking and partying and used the ride-sharing service to get a lift to friend’s house.
That’s when they asked the driver, 24-year-old Danyal Cheema, if they could pay him to “car surf” on the roof of his Toyota Highlander SUV, ABC 7 reports.
The teens initially offered him $70 and then lowered it to $40, but Cheem agreed. Mullen and another teen climbed on top of the car while the third teen filmed it for Snapchat.
But as the car drove, Mullen fell off the roof and slammed his head on the pavement, shattering his skull.
Cheema didn’t get the boy medical attention, even though a hospital was a mile away. Instead, he drove the three teens to their destination and left, ABC 7 reports.
Mullen died from his injuries in his sleep later that day. It was later determined that the 15-year-old suffered from a traumatic brain injury.
The Uber driver has now been charged with second-degree manslaughter and had his license suspended, NBC News reports.
Suffolk County District Attorney Tim Sini said at a press conference:
“This was an incredibly bad decision by the defendant, a bad decision by the boys involved, obviously. But at the end of the day, that defendant is an adult contracted to safely bring those boys home, and he failed to do that.”
The boy’s parents were angered that the Uber driver did not help their son get to his destination responsibly and failed to get him medical help.
His father, Matthew Mullen, said:
“What if the driver was responsible enough to say no? What if he reacted differently and got our son medical attention?”
Cheema is currently being held on $200,000 cash bond. If convicted, he could face 15 years behind bars.