Taxi driver assaults woman in Cúcuta: Police and prosecutor's office search for driver
A taxi driver assaulted a woman inside his vehicle in Cúcuta; authorities are searching for him following the release of images of the incident. The victim has not yet filed a formal complaint.
Search for assailant taxi driver in Cúcuta generates official and union statements
According to infobae.com, authorities in Cúcuta are searching to identify the driver of a taxi accused of physically assaulting a woman inside his vehicle, following the release of a citizen complaint about what occurred at La Curva del Pescado on Avenida Las Américas. The taxi involved, identified with registration plates TJP 132, is affiliated with the Radio Taxi Cone company.
Security footage shows the man moving towards the passenger seat at the moment the woman attempts to exit the vehicle. He then grabs her by the hair, pulls her back into the taxi, slaps her, and throws what appear to be flowers at her. The victim has not filed a formal complaint with authorities to date.
Edgar Torrado, manager of Radio Taxi Cone, told Blu Radio that the company attempted to contact the registered owner of the vehicle without success: "We called the telephone number we have on file, but nobody answered. We went to the registered address and there was no one there either." Torrado clarified that the taxi, although affiliated, has accumulated arrears since March of this year, and that it is unclear whether the owner sold it or changed drivers, given that the person appearing in the video has not been identified. "We reject this act. It does not represent us and it does not represent any taxi driver in the city either," he stated.
Lieutenant Karen Liliana Rico Hernández, head of the Purple Patrol of the National Police in Cúcuta, categorically rejected "the act of gender-based violence that occurred yesterday, in which a man, apparently a taxi driver, physically assaulted a woman on a public road". She informed that the Purple Patrol is deployed in the sector carrying out duties of support, prevention and verification, in coordination with the competent authorities.
Rico Hernández added that the case was referred to the General Prosecutor's Office "in order to proceed with the corresponding criminal investigation and guarantee comprehensive protection for the victim". She also made a call to the public: "We call on citizens to provide us with information about the whereabouts of this man, which they can supply through the emergency lines one two three or through the official channels of the National Police".
In the political sphere, senator Patricia Caicedo, from the Historic Pact, reacted through her social networks: "How despicable, let them identify him, he is a danger to any passenger".
The president of the departmental taxi union, Juan Carlos Bastos, rejected the assault in a video published on social media platform X by journalist Charles Niño, and warned that the attacker was not the owner of the vehicle. Bastos directed a call directly to vehicle owners in the profession: "Every time you change drivers in your taxi, take him and present him to the company. The company must have an updated database of all taxi drivers".
The union leader warned of the legal consequences for owners who do not comply with that requirement: "If this person has an accident, if something happens to him inside the vehicle, you are the sole responsible party, Mr owner". Bastos also noted that in the first hours following the release of the video, another driver's photo who had operated that same vehicle circulated on social networks, an identity that turned out to be incorrect. "That is why, when I woke up, I saw that photo, and I told them: 'Do not share that photo, because that is not the taxi driver'", he explained, attributing the confusion to the fact that the vehicle's database was not updated at the affiliated company.
Bastos ended with an exhortation to the profession: "The invitation to all owners: present your drivers, do not allow your driver to operate without a license, do not allow your driver to not have a control card, because it is your responsibility, as the vehicle owner, to go and update the database at the companies".
Source: Google News CO — Crime