Help Find Killer, Cabbies Plead : Crime: Despite firm’s $25,000 reward, few witnesses have come forth with information on the Oct. 12 slaying of LA Taxi driver.

He struggled hard to rein it in, but cab driver Philip Howitt was fast losing his grip on his grief Thursday.

Tears brimming and his voice cracking, Howitt groped for the words to characterize his friend and fellow driver Stanley R. Kolsky, who was shot and killed in a robbery of Kolsky’s cab two months ago.

“He . . . he wanted to meet people out on the street,” said Howitt, 51, who drove with Kolsky at LA Taxi. “He wanted to be where they were. He liked people. He was a nice guy who used to encourage the new drivers like me. You couldn’t meet a nicer guy.”

Still enraged by the slaying, Howitt and other cabbies stood with Los Angeles police officials Thursday morning in the 500 block of Coronado Street where Kolsky was killed to sound a fresh call for help in the investigation.

Police officers said that few witnesses have come forth since the Oct. 12 slaying, despite a $25,000 reward LA Taxi has offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Kolsky’s killer.

“LA Taxi put out the reward some time ago,” said Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Lt. Doc Warkentin. “We just haven’t received the response we’d hoped for. We think there are witnesses out there who know something.”

Warkentin said Kolsky, 53, was attacked by a robber who police suspect also held up another cab driver only hours before.

“There was a struggle and Kolsky was shot in the head,” said Warkentin. “The cab slowed, the guy climbed over the back seat and pushed (Kolsky) from the cab. Then the suspect sped off.”

Huddling around one of the lemon-colored LA Taxi station wagons that lined the block, drivers in neckties and Windbreakers bearing their company logo discussed the anxiety that has washed over their ranks since the shooting.

“I have a little fear,” said Calvin Williams, 29. “I screen my passengers very carefully now. I’m always looking.”

Gorman Gilbert, president of LA Taxi, said the slaying has compelled his company to intensify its standard safety-education program for drivers. He said drivers are encouraged to surrender fares quietly if robbed at gunpoint.

“We don’t want them to be shot over money,” Gilbert said. “Robberies are, fortunately, rare--but one is one too many. And a killing. We are extremely upset that one of our own would be murdered in such a brutal way.”

In addition to the company-sponsored program, the cabbies said, drivers are taking precautions of their own.

“I keep my crowbars up in the front seat with me,” Williams said. “It’s not visible to the passengers but it’s visible to me. You also got plenty of guys who ride around with their ‘Roscoe’ on them.

“You know, their gun.”