Drivers rally after passenger robbed and beaten in back of for-hire vehicle
By WABC Staff
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CONEY ISLAND, Brooklyn (WABC) — For-hire drivers are demanding urgent action to revise what they call a dangerous and outdated policy after a brutal attack on a passenger.
Police released surveillance video of the suspects wanted in connection with the death of 53-year-old Michael Shelonchik.
The passenger in the back seat of a livery cab died after being robbed.
Police say it happened on Tuesday night, when the livery cab Shelonchik was riding in was stopped at an intersection in Coney Island.
Two suspects opened the backseat doors and started beating the passenger and robbed him. They took the gold chain off his neck.
The driver tried to drive off but noticed the victim was unconscious in the back seat.
He talked about the loss of his younger brother, and said that the chain the robbers took was a “bling necklace like the rappers wear but had a Jewish star on it.”
“And the Jewish star was all diamond-filled so that must have drew the attention,” he said.
Shelonchik’s death has caused outrage in the cab driver community.
A rally was held in the Bronx by for-hire drivers who want to change the law to allow cab drivers to lock their backseat doors.
“Drivers should be allowed to lock the vehicle once the passenger has entered and is secured in the vehicle,” said Fernando Mateo of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers.
Police say Shelonchik had a medical condition after the robbery and was pronounced dead at Maimonides Medical Center.
Shelonchik was a family man who he had been with his wife for 30 years. They raised their two daughters in Brooklyn.
Shelonchik loved being a father, his brother told Eyewitness News over the phone.
“They were everything to him. They came before anything,” said Shelonchik’s brother Ronnie Shelonchik. “They were his love, his life, everything.”
The New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers says that is not allowed under the current law, so that passengers can safely exit the vehicle if they choose, but they say there is a bigger risk to the doors being unlocked, and they are writing a letter to the TLC.
“This is common sense, this isn’t controversy, it’s not us trying to reinvent the wheel,” Mateo said. “When you get in a cab wouldn’t you feel safer if those doors were locked automatically?”
The brother of the passenger in this case says he supports allowing cab drivers to automatically lock passenger doors for their safety.
“The people that did this are the lowest of the low,” Ronnie Shelonchik said. “I’m not going to use any bad words here. And they should be caught and brought to extreme justice. I really wish New York has the death penalty, that’s how bad I want it.”
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