Cabbies face danger on the job
Taxi driver criticizes slow police response after drunken passengers attacked him
The third time Gurmail Singh’s drunk passengers opened the door of his moving taxi to get some fresh air, the veteran cab driver had had enough.
It was around 2:45 a.m. last Sunday, and Singh pulled to the curb on Nelson Street, about a block from Granville Street in downtown Vancouver. He told his four passengers to get out, sober up, then call a different cab. It was just too unsafe to drive with the door open, he told them.
Moments later, Singh says, he was sprawled out on the street, bloodied and being kicked.
The 15-minute police response to the attack has Singh questioning whether officers put a higher priority on the needs of other citizens than those of cabbies. It’s a claim that police reject.
Singh has driven for MacLure’s Cabs for more than 14 years. Because he drives the night shift, he spends a lot of time shuttling passengers home from the downtown core.
Drunk fares are a regular part of the job, but if there’s any fighting or verbal assault, it’s usually between the passengers, Singh said in an interview.
But Singh says he was the target on Aug. 21.
Singh said he had stopped near Davie and Burrard streets to pick up four passengers — two men and two women — one of whom was so drunk that she couldn’t hold herself up. Singh told the passengers he was worried the woman would be sick in his car, but they said she’d be fine. They gave him a pair of East Vancouver addresses and he headed off.
A few blocks down the road, the woman said she was feeling sick. One of the men — who claimed to be the woman’s husband — opened the driver’s side rear door and pushed her head out the cab, said Singh, who quickly stopped the car. This pattern played out twice more before Singh finally asked them to get out and offered to ignore the $6.90 fare.
Three of the passengers left the car. But the fourth protested, hurled insults and started to kick the dashboard from the back seat, Singh alleged.
“I tried to avoid conflict and I just opened my door (and) got out of the car,” Singh said.
But as Singh started to walk away, he was shoved to the ground, he said. Then, while trying to get up, he was struck by three or four kicks near his shoulder.
Two of the passengers pulled the attacker away. Singh called police and the four passengers left. He was bleeding from both elbows and one knee and his pants were torn.
It took about 15 minutes for police to arrive, Singh said. He said that was simply too long when the attack happened a block from the heavily policed Granville entertainment district, he said.
It meant that rather than catching up with and speaking to the passengers, officers would need to look for them using the in-car surveillance footage and destination addresses they gave him.
Vancouver police spokesman Randy Fincham said all calls for assistance are ranked in consideration of what else is happening across the policing district or city.
“Priority is given to in-progress calls, or calls involving violence where the perpetrator of the violence remains at the scene,” Fincham said in an email. “Calls where the suspect is no longer on scene and individuals not requiring an immediate police response would receive a lower priority.”
Fincham did not respond to a later inquiry to ask whether police had identified a suspect in the attack or whether an investigation was underway.
In a separate assault, a taxi driver was struck with a bottle in North Vancouver just before midnight on Thursday, say Mounties.
The driver was headed eastbound on East 29th Street toward Lynn Valley when someone threw a bottle of Bombay Sapphire at his cab. The bottle smashed the window and struck him in the head. He was cut and left with a broken tooth, but he and his female passenger escaped serious harm.
Police found a Powell Peralta skateboard and a bag of tomatoes at the scene, but no attacker. Anyone with information is asked to call the RCMP at 604985-1311 or CrimeStoppers at 1-800-222-8477.