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July 17, 2007

Update: 'Cabbies are fearful,' says victim's manager

CENTRAL FALLS -- Jose Rodriguez, the cab driver shot in the head while transporting three men to Central Falls remained in critical condition at Rhode Island Hospital today.

The manager of Gonzalez Cab Inc. where Rodriguez works, Evelyn Gonzalez, said that Rodriguez picked up three men on Spruce St. in Providence to bring them to Central Falls. She said those same men had assaulted a cabbie a few months earlier. Gonzalez said she is planning to join with other cab companies to ask Providence Mayor David Cicilline to help cabbies get partitions in their cars to protect them from their riders.

“Our cab drivers are vulnerable. There have been other assaults on them and police have not done anything,” Gonzalez said. “Maybe with this people will take action.”

Central Falls police continued its investigation today working with Providence police to find the people involved in the shooting.

Gonzalez, who was working dispatch Monday when the shooting occurred, said Rodriguez’s wife called frantically because she had been talking on the phone with her husband, and he had intimated that the three men he had picked up were acting suspiciously.

She asked him where he was and he said exit 27 on 95 and then the line went dead, according to Gonzalez. Mrs. Rodriguez called Gonzalez and told them her to try to reach her husband. When Gonzalez could not, she said she immediately called Central Falls Police.

Rodriguez has worked with the cab company since 2004, according to Gonzalez. “It is difficult because we are all like family here,” she said. Word of his shooting spread like fire yesterday and about eight cabbies went to Central Falls Police headquarters to find our how he was. The company shut down after the shooting which occurred around midday but was opened for business yesterday again at 6 a.m.

“The cabbies are fearful,” Gonzalez said. “There is not much protection for them.”

-- Journal staff writer Tatiana Pina

Posted by Mike McKinney  at 2:32 PM | Permalink

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