A cab driver continues to fight for his life after he was shot 13 times over the weekend. Now his family is speaking out.
Police responded to a radio call reporting a person with a gun on the 800 block of Brooklyn Street in West Philadelphia Sunday around 2:20 a.m. When they arrived they found Sambou Sylla, 56, unresponsive on the sidewalk next to his taxi cab which was still running. Police say he had been shot at least 13 times.
Sylla was taken to the Penn-Presbyterian Medical Center where he is currently listed in critical condition.
“He lost his left eye,” Sylla’s brother Lassana Sylla told NBC10. “He got shot in the arm three times and hands, leg.”
Officials with the Philadelphia Taxicab Company told NBC10 Sylla was shot a few minutes after he called dispatch to cancel a job. His cab was also found a block away from the customer’s pickup location.
“While he was driving this customer got hostile,” said Khalid Alvi of the Philadelphia Taxi Association. “So he called his base and said, ‘The customer is getting aggravated and I’m going to let him out from my cab.’”
Lassana Sylla told NBC10 his brother is married and the father of seven children. He's originally from Mali and has been working as a cab driver for more than 25 years.
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"Seven kids and a wife," Lassana Sylla said. "Only thing he do, work, home, work, home. He don't bother nobody. Good man."
Police continue to search for the gunman. The Philadelphia Taxi Association is offering $5,000 to anyone with information that leads to an arrest.
“Whoever did this just come forward,” Lassana Sylla said. “Be a man about it and come forward.”
