Columnist Jeff German: Cabbie’s recklessness nets suspects

Friday, Feb. 11, 2005 | 10:44 a.m.

Somebody above was looking out for Shahin Hemmati this week.

The rookie Star cabbie earned himself a steak dinner from his company for his courage in helping police capture the two men suspected of robbing him early Wednesday morning outside a convenience store.

But first he's going to get a company "refresher course" in how to follow proper safety procedures.

Instead of telephoning police immediately, the 26-year-old Hemmati turned vigilante and chased after the two robbers for 10 minutes, tracking them down to an apartment near the site of the robbery at Tropicana Avenue and Fort Apache Road. Then he called police to the scene, where a brief standoff took place before the suspects were apprehended.

Bill Shranko, director of operations for the taxicab conglomerate, Yellow Checker Star, says he plans to personally re-educate Hemmati, who has been on the job for only three months.

"The guy was a courageous son of a gun, but he broke every rule in the book," Shranko says. "No veteran driver would have conducted himself this way. He did everything wrong."

Shranko's words were echoed by Rob Stewart, a spokesman for the state Taxicab Authority, which also provides extensive safety training for cabbies.

"The driver handled it poorly," Stewart says. "He shouldn't have followed them around. He shouldn't have put himself in any danger."

Shranko says Hemmati also never should have picked up the two suspects at the convenience store after they refused to tell him where they wanted to go. And Hemmati definitely shouldn't have swatted away a sawed-off shotgun pointed at the back of his head during the robbery.

"For all intents and purposes, he should be dead right now," Shranko says.

The irony is that, if not for Hemmati's reckless disregard for his safety, police probably would not have apprehended the two suspects as quickly as they did.

But there's a downside here, too.

The suspects, it turns out, weren't arrested on armed robbery charges because, after all of Hemmati's cowboy antics, he had trouble identifying his robbers. Police now are doing forensic testing they hope will link the suspects to the heist.

The two men apparently were captured on the convenience store's surveillance cameras prior to the robbery.

But had there been a camera in Hemmati's cab, police would have had all of the evidence they needed to wrap up this case.

The good news is that Yellow Checker Star, one of the taxi industry's leaders, is moving ahead with plans to install digital still cameras in all of its nearly 700 cabs by April 1.

This is the only company complying with the spirit of an embattled camera regulation, passed by the five-member Taxicab Authority Board in October.

The regulation is headed toward an unknown fate at the Legislature because it ended up allowing companies to go beyond its original intent of protecting cabbies.

Companies have been given the option of installing video cameras with sound that can be used to spy on the drivers and their passengers.

Crimes against cabbies, meanwhile, continue -- risking the lives of more than just risk-takers like Shahin Hemmati.