For N.Y. Drivers, There’s Fear With Every Fare

Dispatcher Rafael Perez usually can count on as many as 20 drivers to work the night shift at Professional Car Service, but these days, he is lucky to get three or four.

The rest are afraid that venturing out after dark onto the streets of the Bronx could cost them their lives--as it has five other drivers in the past five weeks. At least three of those murders, police say, are the work of a serial killer.

“I am afraid to work at night,” said Jose Live, who has been driving a radio-dispatched livery car for four years. “Everybody is very nervous. They don’t want to go out. My family doesn’t want me to go out. I am afraid I will be the next one.”

With four children to feed, Jose Garcia figures he has no choice but to work until 3 a.m., a shift that brings in about $100 a night. But he keeps a copy of the police composite drawing of the killer on his front seat, and stays in close touch with his dispatcher.

In addition to the 12,000 familiar yellow cab drivers trolling the streets of New York, there are about 30,000 such as Live and Garcia who work for livery car services, dispatched by radio to pick up passengers who phone in.

For many high-crime neighborhoods shunned by the yellow cabs, theirs is the only form of taxi service. The car services have grown rapidly in recent years, along with their communities’ dependence upon them.

Last year, 32 cab drivers of all types were murdered in New York, and 3,032 were robbed. But because livery drivers often serve the same customers day in and day out, and do not pick up passengers randomly off the streets, many believed they were somewhat insulated from crime.

With the fifth murder in five weeks, many of the services say they are having to turn down business because of what New York Taxi and Limousine Commission Chairman Jack Lusk called “massive shortages” on the night shift.

Some are serving only regular customers, and others are becoming even more selective. “We are turning down lots of fares when they are males,” said Jose Ortiz, a dispatcher for Bailey Car Services.

Police first said they suspected the work of a serial killer a week ago, after the first three murders occurred within a one-mile radius. Though the drivers worked for different car services, in each instance, a man called their dispatcher in the hours before dawn and asked to be taken to a dark, quiet street. Each of the three drivers was shot through the head.

Since that announcement, two more drivers have been murdered in the area, but police say they do not believe there is a link with the earlier incidents, in part because the murder weapons were of different caliber.

As days pass without an arrest, the drivers’ terror is turning to outrage. On Monday, hearing a report of another shooting, as many as 400 converged on a busy intersection. It turned out to be false, but they were so agitated that they staged an impromptu blockade.

On Tuesday, approximately 200 drivers, their car antennas decorated with black mourning ribbons, blocked traffic in Upper Manhattan near the office of Seamans Radio Dispatcher. The narrow storefront was decorated with floral wreaths in memory of Rafael Montes de Oca, who was shot to death in his car Saturday night in the Bronx.

Mayor David Dinkins has offered a $10,000 reward for information, an amount that has been matched by Gaseteria Oil Corp., which operates service stations frequented by many of the drivers.