Taxi Carjacker Takes Even Shirt On Man's Back

A Metro taxi driver has been released from the hospital after an overnight attack that left him shirtless after being hit in the face and robbed of his clothes, cell phone, money and cab. 

The cabbie, who wishes to be anonymous for safety reasons, was barefoot and wearing only his pants when a good Samaritan lent him a ride and use of his cell phone after spotting him near State Street and Ridge Road, according to the New Haven Register. Police arrived shortly after, and the driver was taken to St. Rafael’s Hospital and treated for facial injuries.
 
He said it was the first time anything had happened to him in his two years of driving a cab.
 
Two women got into the taxi, along with one of the women’s son and a female toddler, but another man came out of their house and told the driver “They’re not going anywhere,” to which one of the women told him to just go, the Register reports.
 
The assailant then pulled the driver out of the car, punching him in the face, and continued to take his cell phone and close to $300.
 
Hamden officer Jason Venditto and a police dog tracked the suspect from Winthrop Avenue to Sherman Parkway, where they found and arrested Dejuana Wells.
 
The driver’s cab was later found abandoned on Winthrop Avenue thanks to the help of a GPS system that had been installed in the cab.
 
Wells was arraigned in Superior Court in Meriden Tuesday on charges of carjacking, third-degree assault and second-degree larceny. He is being held in lieu of $75,000 bail and is scheduled to return to court March 23, according to a court records.
 
Metro taxi is the first taxi company in the state to install cameras in their vehicles, but the cab involved was not yet equipped.
 
The driver is recovering from his injuries, and is expected to be OK.  
 
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