Cab driver shot in South Philly

A cab driver was shot and injured in South Philadelphia early Saturday morning during an attempted robbery by three passengers who had flagged him down, authorities said.

Police said the 38-year-old male driver from the 215-Get-A-Cab company is in stable condition at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.

It was about 3:30 a.m. when the driver picked up the three passengers - two men and a woman - at Broad and Wharton Streets in front of the LukOil gas station.

They told him to drive to 28th and Tasker Streets, as one man sat in front, while the other two passengers sat in the back, police said.

But when they got to their destination, the passenger in front pointed a gun at the driver, and ordered him to stop the taxi and give up all of his money, police said.

The male passenger who was sitting in the back pointed a gun at the driver through the open partition, police said.

The driver told police both men fired a shot at him. He was struck once in the right arm.

Police said the cabbie continued to drive before crashing into several parked cars on the 2300 block of Morris Street. TV news outlets showed images of the taxi van with its left-front side smashed in.

The driver was able to get out of his cab and flag down a police officer on patrol.

Police said the man sitting in the front-passenger seat, described as a black man in his 20s, fled in an unknown direction.

Meanwhile, the man and woman in the back of the taxi "were trapped in the rear passenger seat, kicking, banging, and screaming" to be let out until an unidentified person opened the rear door for them, and they fled west on Morris, police said.

Those two suspects were described as a black man in his 20s, about 5-foot-4, thin, with close-cropped hair, wearing a 3/4-length coat and carrying a tote bag, and a black woman in her 20s, about 5-foot-1 with a stocky build, a waist-length coat, long wavy hair, and also carrying a bag.

Police said nothing was taken from the victim.

A telephone operator who answered the phone at the 215-Get-A-Cab company said there was no one available to comment.

shawj@phillynews.com 215-854-2592 @julieshawphilly