NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) -- A Bronx livery cab driver is "lucky to be alive" after a "crazed" passenger refused to pay the fare, jumped out of his moving car and fired off shots from the street, taxi advocates said Tuesday as they released wild video of the shooting.
"He was lucky the five bullets did not strike him," said spokesman Fernando Mateo, of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers, in a statement.
The cabbie, Eufelix Jiminian, 26, picked up the masked passenger on Colonial Avenue in Pelham Bay around 3:40 a.m. on May 3.
There was some sort of dispute over the address, and the man jumped out of the moving car at Bronx Boulevard and East 219th Street in Olinville, video shows.
Seconds later, as Jiminian was driving away—the car door still ajar—the passenger got up from the street, whipped out a handgun and fired off five shots towards the vehicle.
Video shows the cabbie ducking for cover as he accelerates away from the gunfire.
Mateo urged drivers to "stop picking up masked riders," saying in his statement, "if you can't see their face DO NOT pick them up."
The NYSFTD is also calling for changes to the state's bail reform laws and for additional measures to protect cabbies from armed passengers, including NYPD checkpoints.
The group is offering a $3,000 award for information leading to an arrest in the case.
The suspect is believed to be in his late teens or 20s, officials said.