The man who got into Teddy Johnson’s Metro Taxi cab was disheveled, smelled bad and bought six 18 packs of Bud Light and six gallons of hard liquor when Johnson brought him to the drive through window of a liquor store.
But it wasn’t until the cabby delivered his passenger home where he saw a garage filled with empty Bud Light and Blackjack Pizza boxes that he realized the man and his brother, who lived with him, needed help.
He alerted Northglenn police who got the brothers the assistance they needed, and on Tuesday he and five other taxi drivers from throughout the metro area received Taxi on Patrol awards for contacting police when they saw something suspicious or dealt with someone who needed help.
“The cops said they would send out social services,” said Johnson, 50. “They did get him some help.”
The Taxis on Patrol program is a partnership between metro area law enforcement agencies and cab drivers who report any suspicious activity they see while working their routes in the city.
Since its inception in January, 2011, drivers have reported hundreds of suspicious incidents and crimes in progress ranging from hit-and-runs, homicide, sexual assault, robbery, car jackings and other things.
Over the past year, the program has expanded to more than 30 agencies in the metro area, and it is being implemented in Australia, South Africa, Japan and elsewhere.
Also receiving the quarterly awards were: Mindy Wilson, of Metro Taxi; Steven Bell and Joseph Gallegos, of Yellow Taxi; Virginia Baldwin of Freedom Taxi; and Mohamed Hussein, of Union Taxi.
