A Bronx livery cab passenger refusing to pay a $17 fare jumped out of the moving vehicle and fired off five shots at the driver in a harrowing caught-on-video attack.
“I’m still afraid, so I’m home,” driver Eufelix Jiminian, 26, said of the harrowing clash with his passenger. “I’m not going out.”
Jiminian, 26, spoke out at a Tuesday press conference after driving up in his bullet-riddled white Toyota Highlander, which still has a slug lodged in the rear-passenger tail light.
“When the bullet hit the side of the car, he said it felt like an explosion. It felt like if he had hit the tire and the tire had blown up,” Fernando Mateo, a spokesman for the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers, said at the press conference as he translated for Jiminian, who speaks Spanish. “It was a very scary moment because it was metal lead hitting metal. And just the sound alone was scary.”
The cabbie was just about to drop his fare off on Bronx Blvd. and Carpenter Ave. in Williamsbridge at 4 a.m. on May 1 when the passenger claimed they were at the wrong location, video from Jiminian’s dash cam shows.
“This isn’t Uber, buddy,” the passenger said, refusing Jiminian’s request to look at the passenger’s phone to double check the requested dropoff address.
As Jiminian began to drive on to find the right spot the passenger opened the door and stepped out of the moving car without paying the fare, leaving the door open, the video shows.
As the cabbie tried to figure out what was happening, the passenger could be seen from the open passenger door pulling a gun and running after the car.
At least five shots were fired, hitting the rear of Jiminian’s auto as it sped away, cops said.
“(Jiminian) told the passenger, ‘No, I was told to drop you off here.’ Then the passenger said ‘No!'” Mateo said at the press conference. “That’s when he jumped out of the car, and he shot five times as he was rolling away.”
The federation is offering a $3,000 reward for information about the gunman’s whereabouts.
“He said he has flashbacks,” Mateo said of Jiminian’s experience. “He’s only been able to work maybe three hours a day. He relives it over and over in his mind.”
Jiminian is a native of the Dominican Republic. Driving fares is in his blood: both his mother and father have been cabbies, Mateo said.
The victim had driven cabs for six years, mostly working the night shifts. While he’s never been shot at before, he was somehow always prepared for the possibility, Mateo said.
“He’s happy it happened to him because if it would’ve happened to someone else maybe they wouldn’t have been prepared like he was prepared,” said Mateo. “He was strong at the moment.”
Yet that bravado dwindled when the police took him to where he picked up and dropped the gunman off.
“He was concerned that the guy would show up somehow and start shooting again,” Mateo said.
New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers President Antonio Cabrera said bringing back the NYPD checkpoint program for cab drivers, in which cabbies give permission in advance for cops to stop their vehicles and check their passengers for weapons, could have prevented this.
“We need to make sure riders are unarmed when boarding a cab,” Cabrera said. “Drivers are sitting ducks, and we need to protect them.”
The gunman is believed to be between 19 and 25 and was wearing a black vest and black jeans.
Anyone with information about his identity or whereabouts is asked to call NYPD Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
