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Another woman picked up, sexually attacked by unlicensed cab driver, this time in Allston
By adamg on Sun, 08/18/2013 - 11:42pm
Boston Police report a woman who got into a car at Linden and Pratt streets around 2 a.m. for a ride to Cambridge instead found herself sexually assaulted somewhere off North Harvard Street near the Charles River.
The victim stated to officers a man driving a sedan stopped and offered her a ride to Cambridge. The vehicle was NOT a licensed City of Boston taxi/cab.
The suspect/operator is described as an Indian Male 5'8", medium build, medium complexion, in his mid-thirties with short cropped dark hair and very crooked teeth. The suspect was possibly wearing a black short sleeved collared shirt and had a thick accent.
The suspect was possibly operating a dark four door mid sized vehicle.
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Comments
I'm blaming both sides here
For Chrissakes, lady, if it's not a Boston cab, and it's 2 in the morning on that (expletive) block, DO NOT ENTER THE VEHICLE.
As for this scumbag, let's run a sting op. The lady gets in the car that's not a cab, you come out of the bushes guns drawn, and you check the guy's license and registration. I'll give you 2-1 this piece of (expletive) has priors.
Agreed. Not saying its right
Agreed. Not saying its right but..
I dont know about you but if someone pulled up beside me, offered me a ride, in an unmarked 'taxi', I'd say no. Especially if there was no REAL meter inside.
I wonder how intoxicated these women were. Seriously, again not trying to place blame but seriously, you'd get into an unmarked 'taxi'? Booze must be involved.
It doesnt excuse what happened but.. you have to wonder.
have to wonder what?
?
A group of friends and I had
A group of friends and I had this happen freshman year. None of us were from the city and being from the NYC area, we weren't surprised when a livery cab offered to pick us up. We had gone about a block when we realized there was no meter. The driver did not want to stop and only did so when we offered him $20 to just let us off right there. It happens.
You know what might make him stop next time?
Pepper spray. Acquire some. I can't believe there's a single (meaning a general one, not the specific woman here) woman in Boston at this point that doesn't have any.
Also, don't forget: If somebody bigger than you is fighting you, it's okay to him 'em in the junk. Fair is fair.
My fellow men, leave them the (expletive) alone.
Gee, is that the way they do things on the
mean streets of Vermont? I ask because I've seen men sprayed with mace and pepper spray that only just pissed them off more then they already were. Not stop them.
I'd hate to see some poor woman get hurt worse because they listened to your nonsense. I usually tell women to go for the eyes or an ear. No one wants to fight anyone when the other person is holding their ear or their eyeball. It tends to take the fight out of an aggressor, I've found. You have any idea how easy it is to rip an ear off?
And what mean streets did you grow up on?
I do like the thought of going for the ear. Always worked on me when I was a kid.
Well....
I would also think that if you are jabbing someone in the eye or trying to rip off someone's ear that, well, would not make that person quite pissed off?
Also, one would have to be really close to the attacker's head to poke or rip - better to spray pepper from a few feet away and run, no? It can and does work:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-06-20/news...
And I don't know how easy it is to rip off one's ear but I am going to guess it would take a bit of strength on the part of the ripper.
Well, let me ask you this....
If you were in a fighting mood and someone showed you your ear that they had just ripped off, what would you want to do, keep fighting or get to the nearest hospital? I once saw a fight stopped in East Boston where the defender simply ripped a man's mouth wide open, Joker style. Literally the man's mouth was a flap hanging down.I still see the guy whose mouth was ripped around and those two scars going down the sides of his mouth are quite grim.
Also, access to the ear and eye are a little easier when you have a guy on top of you looking to rape, no?
And ripping an ear off is a lot easier than you think if you do it fast enough.
This type of criticism is why
This type of criticism is why these kind of crimes, even in this day and age, go unreported. Uber drives sedans and it's not unusual to find sedans in the cab stands downtown. Before we start placing blame on the victim, consider we don't know the circumstances. Kudos to the victim for coming forward and providing a great description of this scumbag.
Could have been an honest mistake
I was once tricked by an unofficial cab. I was waiting for a cab at a T station late at night after a long day. I had been waiting for a cab for quite a while, so when a cab pulls up painted with a design like a cab, I instictively got it. It wasn't until I was inside that I noticed it wasn't an official cab. Luckily, the everything went fine for me.
Many, many other large cities
Many, many other large cities have sedans or other car services that aren't painted up cabs. It's not unheard of, and I have frequently gotten into a big dark sedan while stone cold sober. Do NOT blame the victim for getting raped.
Not to mention all the gypsy*
Not to mention all the gypsy* cabs - the old men who hang around grocery stores whispering "taxi" to almost everyone who walks out with bags.
*Sorry, I don't mean to offend. That's what I've always heard them called and I don't know if there's another term.
Jitney (rather than gypsy)
Accordiang to Merrian-Websters Online Dictionary, the word to use for unlicensed cabs is "jitney".
Thanks! Vocab duly updated.
Thanks! Vocab duly updated.
Exactly...
...right, Will. I used to live near Ashford and Pratt, and at 2 AM, that place can be the Wild West.
The Globe article
said that the gentleman had a smartphone app set up as a taxi meter.
I wonder if he was intercepting Uber requests. It wouldn't be that hard to "scoop" requests in neighborhoods knowing the likelihood of it being a tipsy young woman- and it seems he knew her destination.
Does anyone on here know how Uber works on the driver's end? Is it possible for someone to lurk on it, watching the requests and status of other drivers? Does the cabbie dashboard show the user's Gmail or Apple ID name, making it easier to figure out the gender of the fare?
I'm not criticizing Uber by any means- I honestly consider it safer than hailing a random cab. But there's a dark side to everything.
Smart phome was im the South Boston attack
Police haven't said if the guy in the Allston case had the same setup.
no, no, and no.
The app shows the closest drivers where you are. That's it.
When they accept the request, they see your phone number and name. You see their photo, license plate, vehicle make/model.
Uber tells everyone to verify names upon meeting. Most if not all drivers ask me for my name and repeat theirs.
The app, while they're driving, doesn't display any metering information (it'd be kinda nice if it did, or if I could see it on my phone.)
This almost certainly wasn't an uber driver running a legitimate Uber job. There's an electronic paper trail a mile wide, and all the victim would have to do is show the police the ride receipt. The driver's plate number, photo, first name, and a cell phone number are right there. They wouldn't even need to subpoena uber to get the ball rolling on finding the driver.
Uber's far safer than normal cabs - you MUST leave feedback after each ride, if only a star rating, and Uber monitors said feedback. I made comments in a ride about the driver driving unsafely, and I got a private email from someone at uber saying they'd seen the comment and would be speaking to the driver.
Damn near all of them have been awesome. The sketchiest experience was a young guy who thought the Uber cab ride was an opportunity to give a long schpiel about his sports-themed barbershop even though I'd answered his question "Do you like sports?" with "No. I don't follow them at all."
Interestingly enough ...
In many cities of Europe and some in the US, the meter IS a celphone app! In Berlin, the cab we caught at the airport had a smartphone powering both a GPS and the meter display on the rear view mirror and back seat.
Not everyone who gets a cab in Boston lives here or has lived here for some time and knows all the arcane details of what is or isn't an official cab. That makes it easy for a predator to pretend to be an official cab. I suspect that the bizarre balkanization of cab service by tiny municipalities doesn't help the situation, either.
Don't blame the victim
Women are being attacked in the streets and subways and many of the beatings are not reported because victims are afraid of being raped twice, once by the attacker and second by the justice system
Have you ever tried getting a cab at 2AM?
Yet another reason why boston needs to issue more medallions ASAP so that more legitimate, accountable taxi drivers are on the road. The reason why people are turning to services like uber is because the cab situation in boston is terrible
Damn shame....
The traditional old school limo services that have been fighting Uber tooth and nail will be using these incidents to show how Uber is no good,which is as far from the truth as possible. And why are they upset? Mainly because Uber has shown that there are people who don't want to pay almost 150 bucks to go through the tunnel. And yes, some of the larger companies charge their out of town clients that much.
Uber is a threat to them, because it's a driver owned business that they have no control over and they're losing money to it. So now the National Limo Association and lowlifes like Scott Solombrino of local service Dav-El will be applying pressure legislatively to get rid of Uber and unfortunate incidents like these two just add fuel to their fire.
If anyone's interested, the Limo trade magazine website is chock full of Uber hatred. Again, I am not an Uber driver and I have nothing to do with them, but I know plenty of good hard working career chauffeurs who use Uber during the lean times to keep the food on their tables. I'd hate to see it go away.
http://www.lctmag.com/
Rides
In the South Bay Shopping Mall you will always find groups of gipsy cabs waiting in the parking lot