Wild New York: Elderly taxi driver brutally beaten in fight with customer over fare – El Diario NY

An 82-year-old taxi driver was beaten during a fight with a customer over payment of the fare in Manhattan (NYC).

According to the NYPD, the taxi driver was insulted and then hit by the customer with punches and kicks on Canal Street, leaving him unconscious early on the morning of November 10.

Several people quickly ran to help the victim before the police arrived, he reported. Pix11 without disclosing the name of the taxi driver, who preferred to remain anonymous.

The suspect was last seen on surveillance video walking casually toward Orchard Street. “I hope they catch him,” said the taxi driver, stating that he is eager to identify him at a police station.

“I woke up and I was in the hospital,” recalled the driver, who has since been discharged but has continued with hospital appointments and tests. Yesterday the doctors gave him the green light to return to work. He says he has a grueling 70-hour work week. “I have to pay the rent”he claimed.

The victim retired from the United States Postal Service (USPS) and then medallion rented a taxi that he has been driving for the last decade. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before.

“The drivers work long hours, it is very sad. An 82-year-old man who should be enjoying the fruits of his labor…subject to a brutal attack,” denounced Bhairavi Desai, director of the Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA).

The Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) workers union believes that Penalties for attacking drivers are not strict enough and they are only increased in the case of serious crimes.

No arrests have been made or suspects identified. Anyone with information should call at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) and in Spanish 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). Also through the page crimestoppers.nypdonline.org or by text message to 274637 (CRIMES), followed by TIP577. All communications are strictly confidential.

In a similar case, in July a 60-year-old taxi driver was kicked and punched by three women and two men on a street in Midtown Manhattan. At that time, the victim said that New York has a “horrible system” that promotes impunity and asked to send Mayor Eric Adams the video of his attack “so that he dies of shame.”