Unlicensed cab driver shot after chain grab in the Bronx

EASTCHESTER, Bronx (WABC) -- An apparently unlicensed livery cab driver drove himself to the hospital after he was shot during a robbery in the Bronx early Monday.

The 52-year-old victim was picking up a fare of a man and woman in front of a club called The Garage on Tillotson Avenue in the Eastchester section when what police say started as a chain snatching quickly turned violent.

"That fare was getting into the cab, and that fare was robbed of his gold chain," NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said. "And then the male ran off."

The 52-year-old driver gave chase along De Lavall Avenue, and that's when surveillance video shows another suspect pulling out a handgun and opening fire on the vehicle.

"What my daughter heard, about three in the morning, she heard and looked out," neighbor Rozel Wade-Totans said. "She looked out, and she saw this white jeep race down the block. And they stopped here, and they fired two shots."

Authorities say an apparent accomplice ran up behind the car when it stopped, raised his weapon and fired two shots into the car.

"Another man came up and fired into the cab, striking him," Boyce said. "The cab driver then drove himself to the hospital."

The victim was shot in the abdomen and the buttocks, while the passenger was not injured.

Fernando Mateo, with the state Federation of Taxi Drivers, revealed the driver was not legitimate.

"He is not a livery cab driver," he said. "In fact, I believe he has been arrested in October 2013 for being an imposter, pretending to be a cab driver, And evidently, he has kept doing it."

Wade-Totans said the after-hours club is open several times a week for private parties, but at closing time, party-goers end up on her block.

"It's horrible," she said. "They are drunk, and they are young. They don't know how to handle the liquor. They seem to come down and congregate at this end of the block."

The victim is listed in stable condition at Jacobi Medical Center.

No arrests have been made, and anyone with information is asked to call police.