U.S. Agents Arrest Afghan `Drug Kingpin' With Ties to Taliban
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http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=a.Yxrhl632pA&refer=home
Times Sq. taxicab horror
11 are injured as driver 'flies down the block'
BY ADAM LISBERG, TONY SCLAFANI and BILL HUTCHINSON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Firefighters swarm cab during rescue effort to remove driver, who witnesses say went on a horror ride through Times Square.
A cabbie took a pregnant woman on a Times Square terror ride yesterday, leaving behind a trail of crushed cars and 11 broken and bloodied bodies, police said.
"This cab driver was flying down the block, hitting everybody he could see," said Martin Rodriguez, 50, a construction-site security guard who witnessed the 10:30 a.m. mayhem.
Among the three critically injured was passenger Maria Stein, 8-1/2 months pregnant with her first child.
Stein had just gotten into Syed Zia's cab after visiting her obstetrician's Times Square office, her relatives said.
Her wild ride started when Zia, 54, allegedly rear-ended a station wagon that had stopped for a pedestrian crossing 42nd St. at Eighth Ave., cops said.
The collision pushed the station wagon over the pedestrian, Rubin Abayez.
Abayez, 66, who weighs about 300 pounds, was wedged under the wagon. He was later listed in critical condition at St. Luke's Hospital with a ruptured spleen and a fractured pelvis.
"He [Zia] could have stopped right there, but he kept going," said witness Anthony Martin, 49, of Manhattan.
Zia allegedly backed his cab up, hit the gas and continued west on 42nd St., witnesses said.
About midblock, the cabbie sideswiped a parked Chevy Impala with a city sanitation worker sitting inside.
"He sideswiped [my] car then went across and hit the back of [a] bus. He was going full speed," said the sanitation worker, who requested anonymity.
Witnesses said the hazardous hack was going 60 mph when his cab slammed into the rear of a white minibus carrying four passengers, including Lucy Cornelio, 18, of Paterson, N.J.
"The glass shattered and then I was on the floor. I was bleeding from the head," Cornelio said.
The crash caused the minibus to swerve into oncoming eastbound traffic, where it clipped another minibus, police said.
Meanwhile, Zia's cab went into a 180-degree spin, causing a chain-reaction pileup of four yellow cabs waiting for the red light to change at Ninth Ave.
When the crumpled cab finally came to a spinning stop after its 20-second-or-so spree, Rodriguez ran over to find the driver pinned in the front seat, and the pregnant passenger bloodied and dazed in the back.
"She had a big gash on her forehead," Rodriguez said of Stein, 32, of East Rutherford, N.J. "I carried her out of the cab. She didn't say anything. She was dazed."
Stein, a Colombian immigrant who is an executive for UBS bank in New Jersey, was listed in critical condition at Bellevue Hospital. Relatives said her due date for the baby, expected to be a girl, is May 13.
"She was coming out of her doctor's office when this happened," said Stein's mother-in-law, Pilar Stein, of Coral Gables, Fla. "She only comes into the city for the doctors."
"She's a very devout Catholic," Stein continued. "So we are praying the Lord will keep her under his care and that everything goes well for her baby."
Firefighters had to rip the roof off the taxi to free Zia, who suffered two broken legs, a broken arm, a lacerated liver and pancreas and cuts to his face, cops said. He was in critical condition at St. Luke's.
Several others suffered less serious injuries, including the bus passengers. All were treated at Bellevue, police said.
While witnesses said it appeared Zia was trying to flee, cops were inspecting his cab for any malfunctions that could have triggered the destruction. No charges were immediately filed.
Zia, a Pakistani immigrant, has been a city cabbie since 1991. He has had three moving violations since 2002, but was in no immediate jeopardy of losing his license, the Taxi and Limousine Commission said.
"He's never been in an accident," one of Zia's daughters said when contacted at her family's Corona, Queens, home. "He's a very responsible person. He has six children. He's the best father there could ever be."
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/303670p-259904c.html
THANKS freeperfromnj.
I missed that.