Teenager Arrested for Shooting Taxi Driver
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Police arrested a Brooklyn teenager yesterday for shooting a taxi driver in the face last week.
April Pierce, 19, is charged with possession of a deadly firearm and attempting to rob and murder Enois Melbranche, 65. Mr. Melbranche picked up three young women in his yellow medallion cab early last Thursday morning near Flatbush Avenue and Fulton Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant, according to police reports, and drove them about a mile-and-a-half east to Franklin Avenue and Lafayette Avenue.
When the women were getting out of the taxi, an argument concerning the fare erupted, and in the heat of discussion one of them pulled out a handgun and shot Mr. Enois in the face. He was rushed to Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn in critical condition, but he is now stable and expected to survive.
The shooter fled the scene.
The New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers offered $5,000 for information leading to the arrest of the shooter, and Creative Mobile Technologies, which manufactures GPS and cell phone equipment for taxis, offered $10,000. Neither organization was reachable for comment yesterday.
The other two women, who fled with the shooter, have not been found.
