Livery driver shot multiple times by thief who got $23

A Bronx livery driver was critically injured Saturday when he was shot multiple times by a rider who fled on foot with $23, prompting a group supporting safety for cab drivers to rally around him.

The driver was shot seven times in the Soundview neighborhood near the Bronx Zoo before the assailant fled, said Officer Arlene Muniz, a police spokeswoman.

He remained in critical but stable condition at a nearby hospital hours after he picked up the man on the street in the Williamsbridge section of the Bronx around 12:45 p.m., Muniz said. He was a driver for several different companies and was working for Uber at the time, police said.

New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers spokesman Fernando Mateo said the organization is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the assailant. He said the driver, shot in the abdomen, was 26 years old with a wife and three daughters.

Mateo said the man, originally from the Dominican Republic, has lived in the U.S. for about five years and began working as a livery car driver about a year ago. He’d been robbed once before. Police said Saturday’s assailant took the money from his wallet.

Mateo said the shooting was the kind that happened routinely two decades ago before the city teamed up with taxi drivers to reduce the danger to drivers.

Now, he noted, entire years go by without a single driver among the 120,000 who operate in the city being killed. In the late 1990s, the number of cabbies killed was in double digits with several thousand some years facing assaults and robberies. Murders are now down 99 percent, and other attacks are down substantially as well, Mateo said.

He said the reductions came after most cars were required to install video cameras and partitions.

A loophole in the improvements allows cars that make runs for corporations or drivers who carry passengers for companies like Lyft and Uber to operate without cameras and a partition, Mateo said.

He said he’d advise those drivers not to pick up anyone waving them down on the street.

“A few dollars isn’t going to make a difference in your life,” he said. “Don’t risk being shot.”