Taxi Driver Online

New York cop racially abuses taxi driver while on holiday in Derby

A serving New York police officer who came to Derby on holiday to get over his divorce racially-abused a city taxi driver. Lawrence Danglewicz had been drinking in the city centre for almost eight hours when he and a friend got into the cab in Friar Gate. A court heard how they asked the driver to take them to Findern via Mickleover so they could use a cashpoint to pay for the fare.

Lynne Bickley , prosecuting, said: “The defendant began accusing the driver of taking the long way round. “He asked him to stop and started shouting at him and the driver decided he needed to return to Friar Gate and alert the taxi marshals. “At that point the defendant started calling the driver a racially abusive name, repeating it four times. “The driver admits that he swore back at him and at that stage the defendant shouted ‘You don’t know who I am, I’m a police officer.”

Miss Bickley said the behaviour of Danglewicz, of Fawn Lane, in the town of Accord, in New York State, left the cabbie feeling “disrespected” and he drove back to Derby with the men still in his taxi. She said: “He did not want the situation escalating so he got back to Derby and alerted the taxi marshals who called the police. “The defendant then repeated the racial remark and was arrested.

“He was interviewed and fully admitted he had been drinking in the city since 6pm and was very drunk. ”He said he felt embarrassed and wanted to apologise to the taxi driver for what he said.” Danglewicz, 35, pleaded guilty to using racially-aggravated aggressive, insulting or abusive words or behaviour during the incident which began shortly before 2am on Sunday, January 21.

Ande Hunter, mitigating, said: “He lives in New York State where he works as a police officer. “He is on holiday here in Derby having come over to get away from the divorce he is currently going through with his wife. “He could not even remember the incident because of the amount he’d had to drink and he wants to apologise to the victim in person for what he did. “He is due to return to the USA in around a week.”

Mr Hunter said his client took home the equivalent of £1,000 per week from his police job in New York and would be able to pay any financial penalty immediately. Magistrates fined him £1,605 and ordered him to pay £85 prosecution costs, a £170 victim surcharge and £100 compensation to the cabbie.

Ross Watson, chair of the bench, said: “This was obviously a very unpleasant incident during which you racially abused a taxi driver who was taking you home. “Ordinarily an offence like this would attract a community order of up to a year but that is not practical in this case as you are flying home to America next week. “So instead we have decided to order you to pay a high level fine and that needs paying today.”

Councillor Asaf Afzal, Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods and Public Protection said: “This case shows the strength of the collaborative working arrangements supporting the night time economy in the city centre and is a great example of proactive, partnership work between the police, the taxi trade and marshals.

“The taxi marshals are doing an outstanding job, with the help of the PCC funding, and this incident demonstrates how confident the taxi trade are with working with them. In this instance, the marshal acted to protect and support the driver and helped encourage positive action in the reporting of this hate crime leading to a subsequent arrest and court appearance. The marshal acted as a credible independent witness and used his body worn video to capture quality evidence.

"This is not an isolated incident but just one of many where the marshals are going above and beyond to protect the public and taxi trade. We are working hard with all our partners to make our city an even safer place to visit and to get the message across that Hate crime will not be tolerated and will be actively challenged across the city. “I think this is a really positive outcome that should act as deterrent and encourage victims to come forward.”

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IDFIMH

The most baffling aspect of all of this is someone actually going on holiday to Derby.

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IDFIMH

bet he was a trump supporter

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

An odd case indeed, but for me the most interesting part of the article was the cliche-ridden blather-speak from the councilor in the final three paragraphs.

What's the betting the reality is the opposite of what he describes?

My thoughts too.

Talking about Taxi Marshals, Cardiff, (the last report that I recently read), have had to do away with TMs due to lack of funding! That will be fun on weekends - not.

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if you cannot be yourself, then who can you be.

Appears his bosses have found out.

https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/news/d ... cz-1183523

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IDFIMH