Columnist Jeff German: Taking a look at the effect cameras had on crimes against taxicab drivers in Las Vegas over the course of a year

Friday, Jan. 13, 2006 | 8:26 a.m.

Jeff German's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday in the Sun. Reach him at german@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4067.

There's no surprise here.

With half the companies having voluntarily installed cameras in taxicabs, state regulators are reporting a huge decline in robberies of cabdrivers in 2005.

Only 23 robberies were reported throughout the industry last year compared to 69 in 2004, Nevada Taxicab Authority officials tell me.

That's a 67 percent reduction, officials say.

The news is good even in the face of the debate throughout the industry over what kind of camera is best suited for the cabs.

A couple of the companies have put in video cameras capable of recording sound -- which has drawn the ire of civil libertarians concerned about the privacy rights of the drivers and their passengers.

Other companies have installed less-intrusive still digital cameras, which are common in other parts of the country.

Both cameras are responsible for the decline in robberies here.

"They have everything to do with this," says Greg Bambic, president of the Professional Drivers Association, a group dedicated to raising money for cabbies who've been victimized by crime on the job. "They're such a deterrent."

Bambic says that after a couple of robbers were arrested with the help of cameras, the bad guys got the message on the street.

"These guys aren't stupid," he says. "If they know they're going to get caught, they're not going to prey on us."

You'll hear a second to that opinion from Bill Shranko, operations manager for the conglomerate Yellow Checker Star, a leader in the fight to make cameras mandatory throughout the industry.

Shranko is ecstatic over the positive impact cameras have had on the safety of his drivers.

Yellow Checker Star, he says, installed still digital cameras in its 700 cabs in March, and since then only one of the mega-company's drivers has been robbed.

"Crime against our drivers is dramatically down," Shranko tells me. "We couldn't be happier."

If only the rest of the industry could see the value in placing cameras in cabs.

* * *

Now that he's been charged with filing false tax returns, ex-New York cop Louis Eppolito might have some explaining to do about that movie script he once wrote on the 1998 death of Ted Binion.

The script, which Eppolito called "The Sandy Murphy Story," provided a sympathetic account of how Binion's one-time live-in girlfriend wound up linked to his mysterious death.

Eppolito reportedly received a hefty six-figures to write the screenplay from none other than Murphy's 80-something benefactor, William Fuller.

Without mentioning any specifics, this week's federal indictment in Las Vegas accuses Eppolito of not reporting "substantial" screenplay writing income from 2000 to 2002.

This is the very period, I'm told, when Eppolito struck his deal with the media-shy Fuller and collaborated with Murphy on the movie script.

Eppolito was pitching the script to Hollywood at the time of his arrest in Las Vegas last March on federal charges of helping the mob carry out a string of killings during his days on the police force back East.

He's under house arrest in New York waiting to stand trial there next month.

But before he does that, he may have a date in court here -- courtesy of the IRS.