FARE FEAR - Escape at close range

This is the third and penultimate story in the series on taxi drivers' close encounters with death, as they clash with criminals while on the job.

Sheldon Williams, Gleaner Writer

Shot twice. Once in his hand and another time in his lip. The scars are stark reminders for Pepsi, who survived being attacked by two gunmen who boarded his taxi posing as passengers.

One day in October 2001, at about out 6: 30 p.m., Pepsi accepted a job to transport two men from Half-Way Tree Road to Cross Roads in St Andrew. He was shot after being ordered to turn off the ignition and leave the car mid-way the journey.

"Mi take up two boys on Half-Way Tree Road who said they were going Cross Roads, but when mi reach Oxford Road dem tell me fi take out the key and come out of the car," Pepsi said. Before he could even react, the situation escalated. "As mi ready fi take out the key mi hear something go, 'blow!', two times, and me realise sey dem fire two shots. One shot go through mi hand and go through the door and the other one hit me in the lip," Pepsi said.

After the shooting, Pepsi jumped out of the vehicle still conscious as the gunmen drove away his Toyota Sprinter. Bloody and in pain, he was quickly assisted by a woman who had seen what happened. "She did deh in her shop and see when the bwoy dem shoot after me in the car," Pepsi recalled.

The woman ran with him to the Cross Roads Police Station and the lawmen took him to the Kingston Public Hospital in a patrol vehicle. "Mi do surgery the same night and spend a while in hospital with my family by my side," Pepsi said.

The police recovered the car after the gunmen abandoned it. "The youth dem drive weh mi car and leave it down a Newport West, and a the police dem find it and carry it to Newport West Police Station and park it and come a mi yard come tell me," Pepsi said. The lawmen were able to locate him quickly, as his driver's licence was inside the vehicle.

When Pepsi retrieved his car, the driver's door was riddled with bullet holes. That once again brought home his near-death experience and how lucky he was to walk away from it. Pepsi later sold the Sprinter for "likkle and nothing".

Pepsi said the incident forced him to rethink his approach to the job. So after he sold the vehicle, he joined a taxi company in order to have access to radio service. "Mi a work with a company now that works with a radio, so mi can choose work and go fi the work and if mi go fi the work and mi no like the work, mi gone left it," Pepsi joked.

ONCE AGAIN

Even then, Pepsi still found himself under the gun for a second time in about 2005.

"Dem jook mi down and tek weh a car from mi already inno. Mi tek up one boy and him say him a go a certain location and when mi go round deh, him back a gun pon mi and told me to come out of the car. Mi say, 'Do sah, no shoot mi! Do no shoot mi!', and a car drive up beside me same time with two boys. One of the boy jump out of the car and drive weh mi car gone with the other boy weh mi carry," Pepsi said.

"A judgement out deh pon the road, mi tell you," Pepsi said. That car was never recovered.

"Mi glad God spare mi life and mi no dead, mi give God thanks for that," Pepsi said, as he reminisced about many of his colleagues who have been killed on the job. "Since mi inna it a nuff man dead y'know. Even nuff youth weh me know, who a mi friend, bonified, man carry them way and go kill dem. But through God love mi, him make the shot go through mi hand and mi no get no more damage than that," Pepsi said.

There were no arrests in either carjacking case. Now, Pepsi said, he is saved and depends more on the Lord for protection.

Not his real name