Amadu Rahaman had a master’s degree in economics, but loved driving a taxi so much that he stuck with it for more than 40 years after emigrating from Ghana to the United States, his family said.
He could make his own schedule, and used the money to achieve the American dream by putting his two daughters through college.
The dream came to an abrupt end last week. Rahaman, 75, was attacked in his cab by an angry customer, police and family members said. He was taken to a hospital with severe head injuries, and died three days later, on Dec. 16 – making him the second taxi driver to be killed in a crime-related incident so far this year, according to the Taxi and Limousine Commission.
“The attack was very senseless,” Ayisha Rahaman, one of his daughters, said in a phone interview. “He was just trying to earn a living. … This is what he’s done since the ’70s.”
Police said Amadu Rahaman picked up a 36-year-old man around 3 a.m on Dec. 13 near Bleecker Street and Thompson Street in Greenwich Village. The customer got into the cab and asked to be dropped off in the Bronx, but Amadu Rahaman said he couldn’t go that far, police said. After that, the man allegedly attacked the driver, striking him with his fists and throwing him out of the car.
Police arrested Bronx resident Malachi Cintron at the scene. He was charged with assault in the second and third degrees.
Amadu Rahaman was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he was conscious enough to give doctors his daughter’s name and phone number, Ayisha Rahaman recalled. But by the time she got there, he’d slipped out of consciousness, and never woke up.
“At the end of the report and medical autopsy and everything, they concluded it was blunt-force trauma to the head,” Sekina Rahaman, Ayisha’s sister, said. “I’m coping. I’m trying to put on a strong face. … It’s not easy.”
Sekina Rahaman said her father’s work ethic and principles stuck with his daughters the most.
“He instilled intelligence in us about education, about independence, not to rely on anybody about anything,” she said.
Now, she will pass those values on to her children. She said Amadu Rahaman’s four grandchildren, all under the age of 5, are too young to understand what happened.
Naveed Afzal, a 52-year-old rideshare driver was the first driver to die in a crime related incident this year in June, after he was shot in the face as part of an attempted robbery near Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza, police said.
“Violence-related deaths are unusual, but incidents of drivers being assaulted and robbed are unfortunately more common,” Jason Kersten, a spokesperson for the Taxi and Limousine Commission, said.
David Do, the commission’s chair, said in a statement that assaults against drivers, “who place their trust in the riding public, are completely unacceptable.”
“This was a hardworking man with an excellent driving record, working late nights at an age when most of us think about retirement,” Do said. “He deserved so much better.”
Two days before Amadu Rahaman died, Cintron was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on the assault charges. Judge Nicholas Moyne set bail at $7,500, and Cintron paid it, according to online court records. His lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Amadu Rahaman’s daughters said they hope he will face upgraded charges in the wake of their father’s death. Assaulting a Taxi and Limousine Commission driver is punishable by up to 25 years in prison.
“You can’t just go about assaulting innocent people when somebody tells you ‘no,’” Sekina Rahaman said. “I just want justice for my dad. Because this is not fair.”