What Did the Cabbies Do to Get Themselves Killed?

The above question was asked by a neatly dressed, educated 25-year old man. I answered the question with a question.
 
 "I don't know - what do women do to get themselves raped?"


The man was "taken aback" by the passion of my response. He mumbled an apology of sorts and said he just wondered what was going on in the driver's lives that led to their being killed. 


Was this an oxymoron or just moronic?


Talk about avoiding the obvious. The fact that a taxi driver carries cash, is supposed to pick everybody up no matter how they look, and can be easily taken to places where there are no witnesses (red dots on map) might have something to do with these murders apparently never occurred to the nice, young man.


What was startling was his unstated assumption that cab drivers are somehow different than he is meaning lower class and living in a culture of violence, or possibly violent themselves.


This is a popular theme on T.V. where the killed cab driver often turns out to be an ex-Serbian torturer who was revenged by his victims, or an ex-gang member or involved in a drug ring. More to the point, perhaps, was a Law and Order re-run where the driver was killed because he 86'd a customer for smoking a cigar in his taxi.


A number of assaults on cab drivers, and possibly murders, do start with analogous situations. A driver was recently assaulted and robbed in San Francisco after he tried to collect a hundred dollar "barf fee" from a customer who had thrown up in his taxi. A similar attack took place in Athens Georgia last August.


If you don't mind a personal note, I've had a few customers throw punches in my direction because I said something they didn't want to hear - like, "stop screaming and get out of my cab!" I've also had two customers who threatened to kill me.


My favorite was a guy who said he'd kill me if I didn't make an illegal left turn from the parking lane on Broadway onto Stockton across four lanes of heavy traffic during rush-hour. Claimed he'd be late for work if I didn't do it. I told him that he should start for work earlier and insisted that he leave my taxi. Talk is cheap. All he did was glare and leave.


But cab drivers frequently are attacked. I could have said exactly the same thing to another man and been by shot or savaged. In my opinion, the difference between being assaulted or not is simply a matter of meeting the wrong person at the wrong time as in this January, 2010 robbery of driver Balvinder Singh near the Castro. But, Mr. Singh survived. Many drivers have not been so lucky.


Twenty-seven taxi drivers were killed in San Francisco between 1947 and 2007 according to the Taxi Library that has been complied by Charles Rathbone, assistant manager of Luxor Cab. I've only personally known one driver who was murdered but I have a little information on a few more cab driver killing:


1969  - Paul Stine, 29, was apparently slain by the infamous Zodiac killer at the Upper middle-class intersection of Washington and Cherry for no rational reason.


1984 - Geogre Ring, mid-forties, was murdered at the then tough intersection of Grove and Scott. It appeared to be a botched robbery with about fifty bloody dollars strewn around in the cab.


1986 - Leonard Smith, 46, was apparently the victim of another botched robbery. He was probably shot in the Western addition. He was driving toward an emergency room when he died.


1989 (D. 1993) - John D. Colman, twenties, was a student who was driving a cab to pay for college. He was hit in the back of the head with a blunt object when he answered a radio call in the Ingleside district. He fell into a coma and died four years later.


1992 - Richard Harcos, forties, was killed at a housing project on Blythehdale Avenue. Harcos had carried the groceries of two elderly women to their apartment and was confronted by half a dozen guys when he got back to his taxi. One of them shot him in the face.


1993 - David Hayes, forties, who drove for City Cab in San Francisco was shot in Richmond, California about an hour after he started his shift at midnight.


He was the one murder victim I knew. He was a small Englishman from Liverpool. He played in bands and knew everything there was to know about rock and roll music. For this reason everyone called him "Star." I never heard his real name until after he was killed. He worked the midnight to morning shift so he could do his gigs first. He often drove me home when I finished working. He was one of the funniest and sweetest guys I've ever met. He was a delightful person to be around. There is no possibility that he confronted anybody.


My guess is that he was killed because he only had the twenty dollars in change on him with which he started every shift.


2002 - Sukpal Singh, 52, was shot at 4 am on 24th St. and Folsom by somebody outside the taxicab. Might have been a hate crime. Might have been a stray bullet. Nobody knows for sure.


I could go on but I hope I've answered the question of what these people did to get themselves killed.  For more information, check out this memoriam for 2,149 murdered cab drivers compiled by Mr. Rathbone.


Mr. Rathbone has also done considerable research on how to prevent homicides.


It is necessary to be careful but it's also sometime hard to know what that means. The problem is to know when, and when not, to be paranoid. One article about the attack on Balvinder Singh, theorized that the fact that Mr. Singh was "lured" up States Street led to his robbery.


And, it's true that States Street is poorly lit, has "little foot traffic and "only one way in and out." But it's also in an upper middle-class neighborhood and is the fastest, cheapest way to go from the Castro to the Haight. I've driven customers up this street hundreds of times. If I didn't use States Street, I wouldn't be doing my job properly.


I think that the most important factor in a cab robbery or a murder is not where you are but who you are with.


Veteran drivers like myself think that we have a special radar that allows us to see who is, and is not, dangerous. But many of the people on the Taxi Library murdered list had driven cabs for years. The rest of us are just damn lucky.

Players & Plans: Luxor

While we're waiting to find out when (or if) the Town Hall Meetings will resume, I thought that it'd a good time to glance at the players and their plans.

Reading through them, I've come to realize that I've arrived late at a party that's been going on for years. Many of the proposals are far too detailed to have been worked up in response to Newsom's bomb. While I was whiling away my summers riding camels on the Silk Road or trading vodka shots in Mongolia, cab drivers were feverishly mapping out strategies and engaging in back-door negotiations - all with the dream of being ready for the death of K.

In short, the allegations that I am "uninformed" are true. However, I'm less "uninformed" than any official journalist is likely to be. Reviewing these plans will hopefully lead toward enlightenment. I only have space to look at a few main points. For a full summary check with sftaxi@sfmta.com .

Let's start with Luxor because it has a plan that is both unique and, up to this point, has had the most effect. Drawn up by President and General Manager John Lazar together with Charles Rathbone, the proposal features:

• A $50,000 up front fee to be paid by a K medallion holder for the right to transfer the permit via an auction. It's a striking idea that the MTA liked so much that thy stole it.
  
• A two tiered system that would consist of two classes of medallions and medallion holders.
  

1. Transferred medallions, called "M", could in turn be auctioned off like medallions elsewhere. The transfer fee for these would be 5% - 20%. And, once an M always an M.
2. K medallions would also be maintained as would the List. K cabs would be given out as they are now. Where would they come from? From drivers who died or retired without transferring their medallions and from the City which would issue 10 to 20 new cab permits each year. K drivers from the list would always have the option converting to an M.

• Drivers high up on the list would be able sell or auction off their positions to drivers lower on the list.
• The City would give a few corporate medallions every year to dispatch companies like Luxor as a reward for top performance.

While it's authors see lots of winners (money for the City, protection for both medallion holders and drivers on the List as well an exit strategy), the proposal also has difficulties.

• $50,000 is a chunk of money. It = two and a half years of my life. And up front?
  
• The figure is so high that it doubtless has already destroyed any chance of negotiating a reasonable compromise with the City. Then again, at this point that might not be possible anyway. Threatening to steal all the medallions probably was Newsom's idea of negotiating.
  
• The amount may be so high that only desperate drivers would pay it. Once the old and infirm had cashed out, the medallions would probably move very slowly. Many medallion holders wouldn't be able to raise the money or wouldn't have enough left to retire on after they did sell their medallion.

As for Luxor's plan for a dual system ...

• It appears very complicated and the best ideas are usually simple. On the other hand, San Francisco's taxi industry is very complex. Maybe there are no simple solutions.
• It also seems to me that the supply of K medallions would dwindle fairly quickly as most holders converted to the M permits. Charles Rathbone thinks that 30% of K drivers would chose not convert but even so the number of K medallions would eventually run low.
• For me, that is the major flaw of the dual system. It can't be maintained without constantly putting new taxis on the street.
• And, the cabs would be added solely to make the system work - not because of any real business demand or necessity.

The more I think about this proposal, however, the more I like it. It needs to be tweaked of course but it's bold and creative. It shows a willingness to look at the situation with fresh eyes instead of being mired in the usual us vs them narrative. Now if only Mr. Lazor could put that $50,000 back in his paper bag.

Co-opting the MHA

When I joined the Medallion Holders Association, I assumed that, like most voluntary associations, it was more or less democratic. Of course the ideas of the president and the board members might carry more weight but no major decisions would be made without the full input of and a vote from the general membership. This impression was deepened by the presence of an e-mail forum that encouraged people to freely give their opinions on any and all subjects relating to cabs.

One troubling aspect of the group, however, were persistent and slanderous personal attacks launched over the forum by the treasurer of the MHA, Michael Spain.  Many members wondered why the president, Carl Macmurdo, didn't restrain Spain and Carl always claimed that it was a fee speech issue. Rumor had it that Spain had inherited his job when the former treasurer and head of the forum, Charles Rathbone, quit after a series of attacks on him by Spain.

Still, one loose canon wasn't reason enough for me to quit the group and I confess to taking guilty pleasure in verbally beating Spain up when he maligned people I respected. (One joy of dealing with bullies is that you don't feel that you have to play fair when you fight them.) I was hopeful that, by working though the MHA, I might be able to help give medallion holders a better voice.

The situation within the MHA changed quickly after Newsom make it clear that he intended to "reform" Prop. K (see Millionaire Mayor's Plan to Bail out ... 3/9/09).

• About half the drivers on the forum saw this as an opportunity to auction off their taxis.
• The other half wanted to hang on to Prop K at all costs and not put up the cabs for sale.
• Some members wanted to put the matter to a vote but no official ballot materialized.

Instead Spain started attacking all the people who wanted to keep Prop.K intact. One by one, they started dropping out of the forum. After a series of attacks on Barry Korengold (who was quite able to defend himself by the way), Barry realized the direction the MHA was heading in and formed the SFCDA, taking about 50 or so other MHA members with him.

Rather than easing up, Spain continued slamming anybody who had any idea that ran counter to Spain's view of the world. More and more people on the forum wrote wondering why a guy as nice as Carl didn't put a leash on Spain. The few times he replied on the subject, Carl again gave the free speech argument.

 But - what about the rights of the speaker? What happened to the freedom to express an idea without being libeled? If Carl ever supported or backed up anyone that Spain attacked, if he ever defended a person's right to talk without being trashed, I never read the post.

All of which leads me to believe that Carl and Spain have been playing a good cop/bad cop game: Carl has been using Spain as a pit bull to purge the MHA of heretics to their self-created orthodoxy. 

I called up Charles Rathbone and ran my idea by him. He strongly disagreed.    

    "That's a conspiracy theory, " he told me. "The board was just afraid to assert control."

He went on to say that he hadn't quit the MHA simply because of Spain's attacks on him. Spain of course had been verbally abusing other people as well and Charles thought that, as head of the forum, it was his duty to protect people from being smeared - so he put Spain on a "read only status." Rathbone quit because Carl and the Board failed to back him up.   

But Charles didn't know about the way Carl had explained Rathbone's exit to me. Carl told me that Rathbone had become a stooge for Luxor Cab, "so Spain did his thing."

Just because it's a theory, in other words, doesn't make an idea false. 

In my opinion, Spain and Carl's are ideological Siamese twins who have used Spain's malicious slurs, more or less systematically, to rid the MHA of all opposition. That accomplished, they and their coterie can show up at Town Hall Meetings claiming that they represent the medallion holders of San Francisco.

Paranoid conspiracy theory or not, the result is much the same. In the words of medallion holder Zachy Maher, "The MHA is hijacked ..."