Cabby Found Slain in Taxi Left at Cliff’s Edge

A cabdriver was robbed and shot to death and his body left in a taxi perched on the lip of a canyon off Mulholland Drive, Los Angeles police said Friday.

There were no suspects, police said.

The body of Mohsen Ghasemi, 30, of Hollywood was found about 11 p.m. Thursday after a passer-by saw his red, white and blue taxi above a steep drop-off about a quarter of a mile west of Laurel Canyon Boulevard, Detective Russ Kuster said. The taxi was held back from the edge by a dirt ridge running between the front and rear wheels, he said.

Ghasemi, an Iranian who came to this country eight years ago and worked through the Independent Cab Co. of West Los Angeles, was slumped over the steering wheel, shot in the upper body, Kuster said. Ghasemi’s wallet was missing, but it was not known how much money had been stolen.

The killing brought renewed calls from cabdrivers and their organizations for improved safety. Ghasemi was the 27th Los Angeles cabdriver to be slain in the last 20 years, city officials said.

“You drive a cab, you take your life into your own hands,” said Hassan Abebe, a cabby who worked with Ghasemi, who owned his own cab but took some dispatch calls from Independent. “Especially at night. The danger is there every night.”

Investigators did not know whether Ghasemi, who primarily worked nights picking up fares at Sunset Boulevard hotels in West Hollywood, had driven a passenger to the spot where he was killed. Kuster said police had not ruled out the possibility that he stopped on Mulholland because of car trouble and then was approached by his killers.

Kuster said two or more people are suspected of taking part in the killing. Afterward, the suspects apparently tried to push the cab off the road’s shoulder into the canyon to delay discovery of the killing, but the car bottomed out on the ridge and was left there.

Pat Maciekowich, a dispatcher for Independent Cab, said Ghasemi’s cab was equipped with a switch on its radio that could alert the company dispatch center to an emergency, but the switch was unused. She said that because most of Ghasemi’s business came from riders who flagged him down, there was no record of his last passenger.

Although it was unclear if Ghasemi was killed by a fare, his death brought new calls for greater protection for drivers from robbers who pose as passengers.

Kuster said Ghasemi’s car has no bulletproof glass partition between the driver and passenger seats.

George Cuttrell, chief public utilities inspector for the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, said the safety shield is not required by the city and only about 25 of the city’s 1,150 licensed cabs have them. He said they are usually purchased by the drivers themselves.

Cuttrell said the Jan. 7 slaying of a cabdriver in Inglewood prompted the Board of Transportation Commissioners to begin exploring whether to require the shields in city-licensed taxis. The proposal is still under study.

James Szekely, director of the National Taxi Drivers Safety Council based in Tampa, Fla., called driving a cab an occupation second only to law enforcement in terms of on-the-job danger. He said bulletproof shields should be required.

“It’s a very dangerous job--picking up hitchhikers for a living,” Szekely said.

Times staff photographer Boris Yaro contributed to this story.