Project LPPPA Notable Incident Reports

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The KANSAS COALITION FOR LIFE, Project Love, Prayer, and Persistent Political Action

5575 South Mosley Street, Wichita, KS 67216-3631 PHONE: (316) 522-8866 FAX: (316) 522-8833

INCIDENT REPORT: Mark S. Gietzen

Monday, July 21, 2008
Shift Start:	Shift End:
5:45 PM	7:35 PM

ASSUALT BY BEST CAB TAXI DRIVER:

At about 6:45 pm, at least five minutes after Tiller's Gate Closed for the day, Best Cab # 11, (KS Tag No.: VGP-243) driven by the well-known man in a pony-tail came to Tiller's gate carrying two black ladies who were both in their mid-twenties, and who spoke broken English.

At that time, Randy Blasi and I were just finishing putting the Crosses in the back of the Truth-truck.

As the Taxi sat at the gate - apparently waiting for someone inside to open it, I went over and talked to the driver through the window, asking him not to help in this bloody business of killing babies.

The driver shouted obscenities back at me. I continued trying to reason with him, and he began using more profane language, and a higher and higher volume. He was demanding that I leave the area, and I informed him that I was on public property and had every right to be there.

Suddenly, one of the ladies who was in the back seat, opened her side door, on the driver's side, intending to get away from the crazy-acting cab-driver. The driver, with his seat tilted back, used his left arm to try to keep his client from exiting the vehicle. She managed to step out anyway, in spite of his efforts to physically keep her from getting out of the cab.

As she was exiting, he reached out the side door, and grabbed my right wrist, in a way that I thought was going to tear my watch band from my wrist. I pulled my arm away from him, and with my left hand, I tapped his window, on the driver's door twice, lightly with the wrench that we use to close the back of the truth truck, and said to him. "You have no right to assault me!"

When I tapped his window, he bought his left arm back into the cab, leaned forward and proceeded to get out of the cab. Yelling at me - something about killing babies in Vietnam, he hit me in the jaw, but not very effectively, and wrestled the wrench away from me, took the "allen wrench" out of the tool handle and threw it as far away as he could in the grass. Then he took the other part of the wrench, the handle part, and threw that in approximately the same direction.

I resisted my temptation to strike back at him.

With the Cab-driver attacking me, the other lady was able to get out of the cab to get away from him. One of the ladies handed him some money and asked if I would give them a ride to a hotel. I agreed to do so.

The Cab driver, with a now empty Cab got back into the driver's seat.

At that point, the Cab Driver got on the phone, apparently calling the police, but I could not hear what he was saying.

The ladies said that they did not want anything to do with the police, and they walked away, slowly Northbound on the sidewalk on Bleckley Street.

Randy Blasi had stayed by the Truth-truck the entire time, and when the ladies left, he finally came walking over, and offered his cell phone to me, so that I could call the police.

I dialed 911, and told the Emergency Dispatcher that we had an incident at Tiller's gate. The Dispatcher said (words to the effect of): "Are you calling about the situation where the Anti-abortion picketers are pulling the two ladies out of the taxi-cab"?

I said words to the effect of: "No, and that is not what just happened. I was just assaulted by the driver of a Taxi Cab, and his two clients voluntarily left his cab when he started acting crazy."

Six Wichita Police Officers showed up, and took about an hour to sort things out, and to get a report form everyone.

Officer J.M. Camp was in charge of the group.

Case No.: 08C56857 was opened. Officer Camp wants to view the video footage from Tiller's Security Cameras tomorrow to see whose version of the story is correct.

When the officers first arrived, one of the six officers saw the girls about to turn the corner at Bleckley and Kellogg, and he asked if they were the ones in the cab. I told him "Yes" that they were, and he ran and stopped them, apparently to get a statement from them as well.

Note: This same taxi driver is a regular at Tiller's gate. He at