Calling all cabs!

Anatomy of a Code 13 taxi-land rumble

By JOHN EDMONDS

Immediately prior to becoming the Mirror's News Editor, I worked as a driver for Diamond Taxi. The following description is of events which I witnessed at around 1:30 a.m. on Feb. 25. - J.E.

The tone of the dispatcher's voice suddenly became urgent: "There's a Code 13 on St-Hubert between de Maisonneuve and Ontario. A driver has been stabbed. Who can assist?" Without thinking, I turned my taxi around and zoomed aggressively through the traffic. I knew that, within a radius of a few kilometres, dozens of other taxis were doing the exact same thing.

As I approached the location in the grimy Centre-Sud district, the dispatcher gave updates: "The attacker has a white jacket and jeans. He's in his thirties. He's run through an alleyway, and he's now on St-Christophe. Now he's at St-Andre and Robin. Okay--they've got him." I took the corner onto St-Andre fast. Ahead of me the block was jammed with at least 20 taxis. I pulled over, and ran towards the action.

All around, taxi drivers were getting out of their cars: most looked at each other in confusion but some were laughing or shouting. Just ahead, a small man in a white jacket was being held by a couple of huge taxi drivers, one on either side of him. The guy appeared to be on drugs, but maybe he was just terrified: he was shaking, his eyes were wide, and he kept saying, in a pathetic voice, "I didn't do anything! I didn't do anything!"

A group of about six drivers slowly formed a circle around him. One held a long wooden windshield scraper behind his back, and had a nasty smile on his face. One driver stepped forward, and identified himself as the man who had been "attacked." He seemed totally uninjured, though he looked shaky and furious.

"You shouldn't have done THAAAAT!" he screamed into the guy's face. The man in the white jacket cringed. Another driver jumped forward and punched the man in the head. Then another punch, badly aimed. The drivers holding the man were pulling him in different directions, and the guy was ducking punches. He slipped and fell, and then curled up into the foetal position. As he lay on the icy sidewalk, one driver gave him a hard kick on his bony ass. Then more kicks, and for a few seconds the drivers were all over him, obscuring him. When they stopped, the man was unconscious--or playing possum. Blood flowed from a gash over his left eye.

People were laughing--no one seemed to care about the man. Drivers started to leave, and when the police arrived a few minutes later, there were only a few cabs left. The police carefully examined the man, then called an ambulance, which arrived in about two minutes. The cops asked some questions, especially to the driver who had been "stabbed," and took down some names. Then it was all over.

Mean streets

A Code 13 is the Quebec taxi industry's term for a driver in distress. When a Code 13 is called over the radio, almost every driver in the area who hears the call will assist, by tradition of collective defense.

Armand Doganieri, a cabbie since 1959, and assistant director at Montreal's oldest taxi school (Centre de formation professionelle pour l'industrie du taxi du Quebec) told the Mirror that he has seen over a dozen Code 13s.

"If a driver is in trouble, if his life is in danger, all the other drivers in the area will come to help him. It's the only time that all the taxis will work to-gether," said Doganieri. But he also said that the drivers will keep on hitting, even after the attackers have been neutralized, breaking bones, getting the message "don't mess with taxi drivers" across.

"These drivers get very frustrated. They're in traffic all the time, many of them don't like their jobs. And some of them come from a rough background. When they get a guy--or a woman--who threatens a driver, they can be very violent," Doganieri said. "And the police usually know when a Code 13 is happening. They give the drivers five minutes to have an 'exchange of intellectual views' with the attacker before they move in."

Do the police really tolerate the cabbies' street justice? "If you asked that to an on-duty police officer when they have to identify themselves, I don't think that any of them would agree to that kind of behaviour," said MUC Police spokesperson Constable Michel Fontaine. "But if you had a friend who is a cop, and you asked him off the record, you might get a different answer."

Doganieri said that he has been held up six times in his 40 years of driving a cab, twice with a gun, twice with a knife, and twice where a couple of guys used superior numbers to menace him.

According to Taxi Bureau statistics, the MUC has seen seven murders and around 1400 robberies of taxi drivers since 1987.

Taxi driving would be a lot safer, Doganieri said, if drivers would take precautions: "Take a good look at your clients before they get into the cab. Keep your doors locked at night. And don't drive for 15 or 20 hours, because then you get tired and can't react properly. In these situations you have to think fast! And cooperate with your attackers. If they want your pants, give them your pants."

Drivers out of control?

But although self-defense is a legal right, Doganieri says that many Code 13s happen simply because somebody can't pay their cab fare. And sometimes it's impossible to figure out what really happened.

"We didn't lay any charges in what happened at St-Andre and Robin because when we talked to both the man--who suffered only minor injuries--and the driver, we didn't feel that either of them was being totally straight with us," said Fontaine. "The driver said that he had been threatened with some kind of edged weapon, but nothing was found. The man--who had escaped from a detention centre--said he had not paid his cab fare the day before and that the driver had recognized him and called the Code 13."

Richard Boyer, president of the MUC's Taxi Bureau, recalls one incident about five years ago where a driver lost his work permit because he improperly called a Code 13, resulting in a severe beating for a client who wouldn't pay his fare. Similar--if less bloody--incidents happen all the time.

Boyer told the Mirror that the Taxi Bureau is currently training dispatchers and drivers to know how and when to use the Code 13 procedure.

But while street veterans like Doganieri assert that most Code 13 violence is justified, things happen too fast for anyone except the driver and his client to be sure: "When the guys show up for a Code 13, they don't ask questions," said Doganieri. "If the driver points to some guy and says 'Get him!', they'll get him." :