A veteran Boston police officer used racial slurs against an Uber driver — and a good Samaritan who came to the driver’s defense — during a vicious overnight attack in South Boston yesterday, authorities said, while the officer’s lawyer argued today in South Boston District Court the cop was the real “victim.” 
 
 Michael Doherty, 40 of South Boston, had a black eye and his left arm was in a sling as he faced charges of two counts of assault and battery while using a racial slur and using a motor vehicle without authority for briefly stealing the Uber driver’s car after yesterday’s 2:45 a.m. attack on the driver. 
 
 Suffolk Assistant Distict Attorney William Champlin said Doherty, who had hired an Uber car, became agitated at the driver while in South Boston because he thought he was in the wrong location. 
 
 According to Champlin, Doherty lashed out: “You think I’m stupid, you (expletive) (racial slur)?” . 
 
 A short time later, the Uber driver stopped near East 2nd and M streets, and Doherty began hitting him, Champlin said. The Uber driver got out of his car and was chased around it by Doherty, Champlin said. The Uber driver flagged down a good Samaritan for help and Doherty got into the Uber vehicle and took off, according to Champlin. The Uber driver got into the good Samaritan’s vehicle and they gave chase. 
 
 Doherty pulled over at East 1st Street and Farragut Road, and approached both the Uber driver and the good Samaritan, Champlin said. Doherty then addressed the good Samaritan with a racial slur and “began swinging at both parties,” according to Doherty’s arrest report. 
 
 Doherty fled the scene but turned himself in about 11 a.m. yesterday, Champlin said. 
 
 Doherty was released today on the $500 bail he already posted, ordered to refrain from drugs and alcohol and submit to random drug tests, ordered to be evaluated for drug dependency, ordered to stay away from victims and he was also banned from using Uber during his case. 
 
 Doherty’s lawyer Kenneth Anderson said his client disputes prosecutors’ account vigorously. 
 
 “He was really the victim in this matter and not the perpetrator,” Anderson said. “As you can see, he’s got a black eye. He’s got stitches over his eye. He has a torn bicep tendon.” 
 
 Boston police have said Doherty, a 16-year veteran, is on administrative leave and the department’s Anti-Corruption Unit is investigating the incident. 
 
 Anderson declined further comment after the arraignment. 
 
 He confirmed that Doherty’s ex-girlfriend, Mary Niland, 24, had a brief unrelated hearing in the same courtroom prior to Doherty’s arraignment. 
 
 In that hearing, Champlin amended a charge against Niland from unarmed burglary to breaking and entering during the night time with intent to commit a felony. Niland is accused of breaking into a South Boston residence about 2:30 a.m. Nov. 3. ||||| A veteran Boston police officer uttered racial slurs during an alleged assault of an Uber driver in South Boston early Sunday, according to a police report and a statement from the department. 
 
 Officer Michael Doherty, 40, of South Boston, a 16-year-veteran, was placed on paid administrative leave after his arrest on charges of assault and battery and of using a motor vehicle without authority, police said. 
 
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 He could not be reached for comment, and his union president did not return a call late Sunday. 
 
 According to a police statement, an Uber driver told officers at about 2:45 a.m. that a passenger, later identified as Doherty, had assaulted him. The driver also said Doherty repeatedly used racial slurs during the encounter, according to a police report obtained by the Globe. 
 
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 When the vehicle was on East Second Street, the driver reported, Doherty said they were in the wrong place and asked, “What, you think I’m stupid, you [expletive],” followed by a racist term for Latinos, the report said. 
 
 Doherty told the man to keep driving and began hitting him when he stopped at East Second and M Streets, prompting the driver to get out, according to the report. 
 
 The officer chased the driver around the vehicle, the report said, and the driver waved down motorists for help until a man stopped to offer assistance. At that point, Doherty got behind the wheel of the Uber vehicle and drove off, according to the police report. 
 
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 The Uber driver got into the assisting man’s car, and they followed Doherty, who exited the victim’s vehicle at East First Street and Farragut Road, the report said. 
 
 He walked toward the Uber driver and the man who provided help, who is black, and said, “What do you want, you [expletive],” and then used the n-word, the report said. 
 
 Doherty allegedly knocked the Uber driver to the ground and kept hitting him as the other man tried to pull Doherty off, the report said. Doherty walked away when police arrived but was later arrested. He is scheduled to be arraigned Monday in South Boston District Court. 
 
 Uber, the popular ride-sharing service, said in a statement that their thoughts were with the driver, adding that they have barred Doherty from using the service per company policy and “stand ready to assist law enforcement” in the investigation. 
 
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 To some, “Pretty Woman” (1990) was just another Cinderella story — even if it put an unrealistic gloss on the sex trade and helped launch the career of Julia Roberts. But for Michael Pelletz, founder of a “female-only Uber” called Chariot for Women, the Richard Gere vehicle was nothing short of an inspiration. 
 
 “I saw that something in this movie,” he told The Washington Post in a telephone interview. “I was made to take care of women, to love them, respect them. … I was meant to do this.” 
 
 The Massachusetts-based company’s mission — as its website explains, “Driven by women. Exclusively for women” — seems simple. While Uber, which just saw one of its drivers allegedly kill six people in Michigan and agreed to pay almost $40 million after lawsuits questioned background checks for its drivers, continues to draw criticism about safety, Pelletz is launching a competitor to keep women safe but raises significant legal questions about equal access. The service could be challenged in court because it hires only women — and also could be challenged because it serves only them and children under age 13. TNW labeled it “a female-only Uber that could get shut down before it takes off.” 
 
 “This company sounds great,” Joseph L. Sulman, an employment-law specialist, told the Boston Globe last month. “Whether it’s legal or not is a different question.” 
 
 Pelletz said he got the idea for Chariot while … driving for Uber. The 41-year-old once drove for the ride-hailing service for 17 hours per day, according to Chariot’s website, after his father, who ran the family business manufacturing plumbing and heating products, was diagnosed with a brain tumor. 
 
 “I actually loved driving for Uber,” Pelletz said. “I love to talk. I love meeting people. When I first signed up, I thought that was what it was going to be all about.” 
 
 Pelletz, 41, drove for Uber for nine months. Although he said he had “wonderful passengers” and “great experiences,” there was one big takeaway. 
 
 “It shocked me all the stories of women just getting hit on all the time,” he said. 
 
 Uber is no stranger to sexual-assault allegations. Last month, for example, BuzzFeed reported the company said it saw “fewer than” 170 claims of sexual assault reported through its customer-service database between December 2012 and August 2015 — but BuzzFeed questioned whether that number was accurate. In February, The Washington Post’s Peter Holley reported that Uber drivers without criminal histories have committed crimes before; they have been involved in a racially motivated choking incident and an anti-gay assault, been arrested for drunken driving at the Super Bowl, and been charged with rape, for example. Meanwhile, just 19 percent of Uber drivers in the United States are women. 
 
 [What the Michigan shooting spree reveals about Uber’s background checks] 
 
 “This economic opportunity has excluded women — not purposefully, but women have self-selected out of it,” Nick Allen, a co-founder of the now-defunct Sidecar who left to start a ride service for children, told Forbes last year. “And the number one reason they do that is the perception of safety or lack thereof.” 
 
 Chariot’s business plan, according to its website, took only “10 minutes” for Pelletz to dream up: “driven by women, for women and children passengers only,” an “untapped market that Uber and Lyft neglected.” 
 
 “How many times did he pick up college girls at 2 or 3 a.m.?” Chariot’s website says. “How many times did he watch as they spilled out of Boston clubs and into the wrong rideshare car? Michael has two daughters, and the thought of them doing this was like a knife to the chest. Just one bad apple behind the wheel, and those women would not be safe at all. 3 a.m. in Boston is a candy store for predators. Michael’s fatherly instinct kicked in.” 
 
 
 
 Michael Pelletz and Kelly Pelletz of Chariot. (Courtesy Michael Pelletz) 
 
 How does Chariot work? Chariot’s female drivers will pick up women and children under 13. Drivers, who will be fingerprinted and go through background checks in a partnership with local law enforcement, will earn at least $25 per hour — what the company calls “the best compensation structure in the business.” Drivers will have to answer a security question at the beginning of each work day for Chariot to confirm their identity. The app will provide passengers and drivers with a “safe word” — the ride won’t begin until the driver confirms the word with the passenger. There is no surge pricing. Transgender women can also drive and ride. And 2 percent of every fare will go to “woman-based” charities. 
 
 But ahead of Chariot’s launch in Boston on April 19, Pelletz and his wife, Kelly, the company’s president, face an uncomfortable legal question: Does Chariot discriminate? 
 
 “There’s nothing wrong with advertising particularly to a female customer base,” Dahlia C. Rudavsky, a partner in the Boston firm of Messing, Rudavsky & Weliky, which specializes in labor law, told the Boston Globe. “But if a company goes further and refuses to pick up a man, I think they’d potentially run into legal trouble.” 
 
 Pelletz wasn’t concerned about such questions. 
 
 “I have an amazing lawyer and law team, and they would have never come onboard if they thought anything I was doing was illegal,” Pelletz said. “If and when we ever do face a legal challenge, we will be very prepared. All we are doing is protecting women drivers.” 
 
 That attorney, meanwhile, defended Chariot in the Massachusetts press. 
 
 “Courts have long held that hiring on the basis of sex is permissible where sex is a bona fide occupational qualification in the context of serving privacy interests,” Chase Liu, general counsel for Chariot for Women, told the Worcester Telegram and Gazette. “At stake here is more than just privacy — safety and security are also at issue. As such, we are confident that our hiring of women drivers constitutes a bona fide occupational qualification, where doing so is necessary to uphold the privacy, safety and security of our drivers and riders.” 
 
 Pelletz also emailed what he called a legal statement to The Post. 
 
 “Our mission is to provide women with equal access to safety and freedom of travel, at any hour of the day, from any location to any destination, when taking part in ride-sharing,” the statement read. “We believe that giving women and their loved ones peace of mind is not only a public policy imperative but serves an essential social interest. Our service is intended to protect these fundamental liberties, and we look forward to ending the inequality of security that currently afflicts drivers and riders on the basis of gender.” 
 
 Whether Chariot will succeed or join Uber also-rans such as Sidecar is unclear. More than 1,000 women have signed up to drive for Chariot, according to USA Today. But can a Boston company facing fundamental questions about its legality and already thinking about a name change catch up with Uber, which has claimed it provides 1 million rides per day around the world? 
 
 Yet Pelletz remained confident. 
 
 “I love my children and my wife and I defiintely can relate to women,” he said. 
 
 This post has been updated to show the current percentage of Uber drivers who are women.
– A veteran Boston police officer is facing charges after he allegedly assaulted an Uber driver—but the cop says he was really the victim. According to a police report, Michael Doherty, 40, a veteran of 16 years, was riding in an Uber car early Sunday when he verbally accosted the driver, the Boston Globe reports. "What, you think I’m stupid, you [expletive]," Doherty reportedly said, using a racist term for Latinos. The driver claims Doherty began hitting him, believing he was being dropped off at the wrong place near East 2nd and M streets. When the driver jumped out, Doherty allegedly got behind the wheel and drove away. The driver says he flagged down a good Samaritan and got in his car in pursuit of Doherty. They approached the officer after he parked, at which point Doherty hurled the n-word at the Samaritan, knocked down the Uber driver, and punched him repeatedly, the report says. News reports have Doherty either being arrested or turning himself in, but either way, his lawyer says Doherty has a black eye, stitches over his eye, and a torn tendon, the Boston Herald reports. "He was really the victim in this matter and not the perpetrator," the attorney said in court. Doherty was placed on administrative leave as Boston police investigate. In an unrelated hearing in the same courtroom before Doherty's arraignment, an ex-girlfriend of his was charged with breaking and entering at a South Boston residence in November. (Also in Boston, an Uber driver has been accused of raping a passenger.)