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Saturday, April 2, 2011

*UPDATE* CAB DRIVER SHOT IN NEW YORK LEFT QUADRIPLEGIC!




Julio Lora, the 64-year old livery cab driver shot in the head by a robber yesterday, has no movement from the neck down.   Fernando Mateo, president of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers, delivered the grim news to reporters Friday outside Lincoln Hospital, after visiting Lora’s family. 
The father of seven was shot Thursday afternoon, and police quickly arrested 29-year-old Devon Taylor of the Bronx, charging him with attempted murder, robbery, gang assault and criminal possession of a weapon.
Mateo told reporters, “Julio Lora will never walk again.  He’s a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down.”  Mateo said nerves were severed in Lora’s spinal cord, and Lora’s  chances for survival were less than 30 percent, since he’s also  fighting a lung infection.    Mateo said Lora drove a cab for 20 years “and he had been robbed numerous times.”  The victim also worked a long day.  “He would get up at 4 am and work until 4 pm,” Mateo remarked.  “Then, he switched shifts with his son, who worked until 12 midnight.”
Lora’s son had stood outside Lincoln Hospital’s emergency room last night, noting that his father was shot for less than $100.  “He had in his wallet 71 dollars, that’s what he got,” the son told reporters.
Today, PIX 11 revisited the shooting scene at Prospect Avenue and East 163rd Street in the Bronx, where witnesses recalled what happened at 3:30 yesterday afternoon.  Tarsem Singh, owner of a fast-food restaurant on Prospect, told us “When I stepped out, I saw the man leaning over in his car.  There was bleeding from his head.”  Lora had smashed his livery cab into a parked SUV, after he was shot.  Carlos Mieles, an architect who works out of a storefront on Prospect, said “I just heard the bang.  I heard the impact.  I saw that a car had been hit.  There was commotion down the block.”
Police say the commotion started after the suspect, Devon Taylor, left  his gun in the cab, walked up the street,  and grabbed an elderly woman outside a senior residence, on the corner of East 163rd Street and Prospect.    Pedro Bracero told PIX 11 he watched the entire episode.  “When the bad  guy crossed the street,  he took the old lady’s purse.  A ‘Good Samaritan’ grabbed him and another guy tackled him.”  The police arrived soon after.  Bracero pulled no punches, when talking about the suspect, Devon Taylor.  “He’s a roach.   Just a cockroach.” 

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