The driver, Ganiou Gandonou, was found shortly after 9 p.m. seated inside a black Toyota Camry with stab wounds to his neck and torso, police said. Police are investigating whether Gandonou’s death began as a robbery.
Gandonou drove for Uber and had received his for-hire vehicle license in January 2017, according to the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission.
He left home around 7 p.m. to work a shift picking up passengers and he never came home, his wife said in an interview with News 12. He had a 2-year-old son.
“My husband doesn’t deserve this,” she said. “I don’t know how my life’s going to be without him.”
Driving a taxi or for-hire vehicle has long been a dangerous job. In the early 1990s, dozens of livery drivers were killed on the job in a single year and many more were assaulted or robbed.
An Uber spokesman, Grant Klinzman, called Gandonou’s death “a horribly tragic incident,” adding, “our hearts go out to the grieving family.”
“We stand ready to work with law enforcement to assist their investigation in any way possible,” Klinzman said in a statement.
On Sunday, a driver group offered a $3,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the killing.
“We call on anyone who may have witnessed the attack to contact the police so that the culprit may be brought to justice,” the group, the Independent Drivers Guild, said in a statement.
Violence and threats are part of being a professional driver, said Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.
“Knowing how to protect yourself from crime is as critical to a driver as knowing the names of streets and avenues,” Desai said. “It’s a part of their day-to-day life behind the wheel.”
Gandonou was taken from the car, which was parked on the Hutchinson River Parkway East, to Jacobi Medical Center, where he died. His vehicle and driver’s license were in good standing, according to the taxi commission.
A 68-year-old Uber driver died in 2017 after he was hit in the head with a hockey stick by a pedestrian during a dispute in Manhattan, police said. A man was arrested, but the charges were dropped.
In 2014, two livery drivers were killed in the Bronx in a month, prompting concerns over driver safety. The taxi commission requires most taxis and for-hire vehicles to have stickers in back seats reminding passengers that assaulting a driver is punishable by up to 25 years in prison.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.