It started out as a routine call for a routine cab ride in the city of Frederick.
But somehow the taxi ended up 50 miles away — outside an East Baltimore public housing complex — with the driver, Stephen Mauk, 47, dead from a gunshot wound.
Now, Baltimore police are probing the crime, asking how Mauk and his taxi got so far off his route during the early morning hours Monday.
“They must have let the driver know he was going to go to Baltimore, whether he liked it or not,” said Blaine Young, co-owner of the Yellow Cab of Frederick. “We never heard from that driver again once he picked up that call. We had no clue he was in Baltimore.”
At about midnight, Mauk was dispatched to make a “routine call to a routine residence” that was supposed to have a pick-up and drop-off within the city limits of Frederick, Young said.
After about 30 minutes, the company’s dispatcher became concerned and tried contacting Mauk, but received no response. The company sent other drivers to look for him but had no luck, Young said.
Then they got a call from Baltimore police: “There’s been a shooting.”
As police investigate the case, cab drivers in Baltimore expressed fear about the danger of their jobs.
“I’m scared,” Abebe Tesgera, 27, who has driven a cab for two years for the Rainbow Taxi company, said as he waited for a fare at an East Pratt Street taxi stand. “I thought about quitting today. How can you do a job that’s not safe? And it seems that this job is not safe. You don’t want to think you’re risking your life every time you pick someone up.”
Taxi drivers have the third-highest rate of assaults of workers in all professions, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
Young said Mauk, who lived in Frederick, started driving a taxi nine months ago because he was looking for more work. He used to work in construction and planned to go back when the economy got better, the owner said.
“He was a good guy,” Young said. “He had a good attitude. He was always willing to work and work hard. Cab drivers are there to make sure people get home safely. I would like to say that it’s not a dangerous job, but obviously this does not back up my statement.”
Examiner Staff Writers Stephen Janis and Jaime Malarkey contributed to this report.
