A New York City taxi driver may have to pay $25,000 after a judge said the cabbie refused to pick up a trio of passengers because they’re black.
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Cynthia Jordan, a 57-year-old vice president at a financial firm, was with her two daughters outside Manhattan’s Midtown Macy’s when she tried to hail Raza’s cab. “Then he drove down about 25 feet and picked up two Caucasian women”.
“Upon seeing what was transpiring, Ms. Jordan ran up to the cab and exclaimed, ‘Are you kidding me?” He picked up two white passengers instead, within eye sight of Jordan. “I said, ‘I’m going to report you, ‘ and he said, ‘Go ahead, report me, ‘” Jordan said. The cab driver was ordered to pay $10,000 in compensation to Jordan as well as a $15,000 fine.
“I’m always out with my young daughter trying to grab a cab”, she told DNAinfo. “Hopefully someone will hear about this and it will affect the way taxi drivers pick up fares in New York”, she told DNAinfo.
Despite the fact that he pleaded guilty to the October 2013 incident in a TLC hearing that year, Raza now claims he never told Jordan he was off-duty or on a break.
Administrative Law Judge Richard Kramer recommended the fine last month and still must be approved by the city Human Rights Commission.
“Mom, look, he’s picking up someone else down the block”, one of Jordan’s daughters said in court papers. Rather, he argues that the white women jumped in his cab.
She then reported Raza to the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC).
Jordan admitted in court that she called the other passengers “white bitches” but said she regretted saying it. “His discriminatory act was highly offensive and precisely the type of discrimination that the Human Rights Law seeks to eliminate”.
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“It’s not usually language I use, but I was angry at this time”, she said. “I’ve lived in New York all my life”. The commission still has to approve the judge’s recommendation for the additional $25,000 penalty, according to the news site.
