NYC yellow taxi driver beaten to death in Queens
A New York City taxi driver was killed early Saturday in Queens when he chased down passengers who tried to rob him, police said.
Kutin Gyimah, 52, a married father of four young kids, was dropping off the five people around 6:30 a.m. at Beach 54th Street and Arverne Boulevard in the Rockaways when the senseless violence unfolded.
He ran after the group to confront them when at least one of the passengers took a swing at the cabbie, sending him flying to the street, where he cracked his head near Arverne Playground, police said.
The would-be thieves then took off toward Beach Channel Driver, security footage obtained by The Post from a nearby bodega, Deli from the Block, shows.
Responding officers found the Bronx man lying in the roadway, near a playground about a half block away, with “trauma to the back of his head,” the NYPD said. He was pronounced dead at St. John’s Hospital.
“This is a poor hardworking man, how can you leave your home and NOT return, this is outrageous. We are angry, we are in disbelief, we want justice,” said Fernando Mateo of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers.
“These murderers must be caught and we are offering a $15,000 reward . . . All funeral expenses will be covered by the owners of Big Apple Taxi Fleet Management where Mr. [Gyimah] worked,” he said.
NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell and “she assured us that the NYPD will find those responsible,” he added.
Gyimah’s widow, Abigail, with whom he shares kids ages 3, 5, 7 and 8, was “speechless — crying, wailing,” said Mateo. “Every time she looks at the pictures on the wall she breaks down.”
A GoFundMe for the family had raised more than $17,000 by Saturday afternoon.
“All through the worst days of the pandemic, he was one of the few who still drove a cab to provide support for our city and its citizens,” according to the online fundraiser.
A City Hall spokesman called Gyimah’s killing “not only devastating, but unacceptable . . . We extend our deepest condolences to the victim’s family, friends, and coworkers during this painful time and we will work diligently to bring all people responsible to justice.”
‘Wild, wild west out here’
“The world is crazy, man, and it’s happening everywhere,” said one deli customer. “People are getting shot on the train and getting robbed, killed, slashed. It’s the wild, wild west out here.”
Police sources said the deadly beating was caught on video, although the NYPD did not immediately confirm that.
Mateo told The Post he planned to hold a news briefing Sunday with the victim’s family and “a sea of yellow cab drivers” in attendance.
The last crime-related death of a yellow taxi driver was in July 2019, when a driver got out of his vehicle in The Bronx and was run over by the cab as he chased a passenger who’d stolen his backpack, Mateo said.
In July 1997, a 65-year-old yellow taxi driver was shot dead in an apparent robbery on the East Side.
The incident occurred in the 101st Precinct, where major crimes are down 5% in 2022 through Aug. 7 compared to the same time last year, but burglaries are up 11%, grand larcenies climbed 15%, car thefts jumped 18% and the number of shooting victims has climbed by 29%, NYPD data show.
Additional reporting by Tina Moore and Haley Brown
