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Updated 08/27/2009 08:01 PM

Bronx Cab Procession Honors Fallen Livery Driver

By: Dean Meminger

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Grieving and worried cab drivers gathered in Fordham, Bronx Thursday to remember a comrade who was murdered Sunday and demand more protection from police. Borough reporter Dean Meminger filed the following report.

In a slow procession in Fordham, Bronx, a long caravan of livery cab drivers paid their last respects to a fellow murdered driver.

Last Sunday night, Jose Pena-Seguira, 42, was shot in the head and robbed on Wales Avenue near 147th Street. Police have charged Benny Delgado, 31, with killing Pena.

Pena is the third cab driver to be killed in the Bronx this year.

"His family is hurt right now. He just came out to make a dollar to put food on his table and now he is gone," said a mourner.

During the funeral, many wore T-shirts with Pena's photo on the front and "Rest In Peace" on the back.

"What it means is that Jose Pena was loved," said Fernando Mateo of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers. "What it means is that these drivers all have families, they all have children. What it means is that this industry is united."

The funeral procession of cabs traveled through the Bronx, starting at the Kiss Cab Company that Pena worked for, down Webster Avenue past his apartment, to the crime scene and finally to the Ortiz Funeral Home on the Grand Concourse.

"Right now our concern is we don't want to go back to like 1997, 1995, something like that, when every week a cab driver was killed," said Daniel Genere of the Kiss Cab Company.

"The week prior to this guy getting killed, another African driver got killed," said Mamadou Kane of the African Livery Cab Association. "We need to come together to do some thing about it. Perhaps this could be stopped."

In response to the crimes, this coming Monday police will be registering cabs into the Taxi Robbery Inspection Program.

Registered cabs can be stopped by police and searched at any time.

"If we make $100, it's a lot for us. So don't think that we have money. So stop robbing cab drivers," said a cab driver.

"We just out to bring service. We are not out to get killed," said another.

Pena, who is survived by a wife and four children, will be flown to the Dominican Republic early next week for burial.