N.Y. Livery Cab Driver Killed; 9th This Year

NEW YORK — The fatal shooting of a livery cab driver in New York City on Friday, the ninth such slaying this year, prompted threats of a work slowdown by the city’s worried livery drivers while the wave of killings persists.

Saro Lopez, a Dominican immigrant and father of three children, was fatally shot in the head about 4 a.m. while driving in a remote section of the city’s Brooklyn borough, police said.

The suspects were described as a man and a woman in their 20s, said Officer Louis Cruz, a police spokesman. There were no arrests.

As was the case in several of the earlier slayings, Lopez apparently was not answering a dispatch call but was believed to have picked up his passengers on the street, Cruz said.

Unlike the city’s yellow cab fleet, a common sight in Manhattan, livery drivers respond to dispatch calls. They are not allowed to pick up so-called street hails but often do so.

“He must have been hailed down and picked up these passengers,” Cruz said.

Lopez, 43, was like other livery drivers--typically operating in the most remote, poorest and crime-ridden neighborhoods, none of which are served by the yellow cab fleet or the subway system.