Taxi muggings spread unease among Bogotá residents

By taking a taxi in Bogotá you are also taking the risk - smaller or greater depending on the day, the hour and the neighbourhood - of being robbed, beaten, stabbed or just possibly killed. The risk is far smaller than the fear it has generated, and affects both taxi drivers and passengers in an atmosphere infected with mutual suspicion. While passengers may perceive the taxi as a potential trap wherein it is difficult to manoeuvre in self-defence, drivers are presumably perturbed by any suspect movement behind them, in spite of a dividing screen. The public were recently reminded of the danger of taking a taxi at night after a US Drug Enforcement Administration agent was stabbed to death in a taxi late on 20 June, evidently by the driver and a gang of accomplices who sought to rob him. The daily El Tiempo reported on 3 July that based on cases registered with the police, taxi muggings happen mostly on weekday evenings and in neighbourhoods where people leave restaurants and bars. The newspaper observed that only two cases were reported this year to have occurred at the weekend. Muggers it reported were indifferent to the victim's gender and all muggings occurred inside the vehicle. Police counted 35 such muggings between 1 January and 26 June 2013, compared to 71 cases reported for the same period in 2012, El Tiempo reported; it cautioned that the figures excluded taxi thefts that were unreported. The neighbourhoods with most cases of taxi muggings were Chapinero in central Bogotá, Barrios Unidos adjacent to Chapinero and Usaquén in north-eastern Bogotá. Most cases were reported to have occurred in Chapinero - a commercial and residential district that also concentrates gay bars - with 17 such muggings reported for the period cited in 2013 (31 in 2012). The next district most affected was Usaquén with five such muggings (nine in 2012), while taxi muggings dropped in the two comparative periods from 10 cases to one in Teusaquillo - a middle-class neighbourhood next to Chapinero and home to university institutions and a student population.