'I'm Not Wrong': Taxi Driver Says He's Not Responsible For Sleeping Boy Left Alone In Cab
BOSTON (CBS) - It wasn't easy to see in the dark for taxi driver Jean Paul. A sleeping four-year-old boy had accidentally been left in the third row of his minivan. "I looked in the back and didn't see anyone, I didn't see anyone in the cab," he tells WBZ-TV.
He missed it, and the boy's parents missed it when Jean Paul dropped the family with several children off at their Weston home Wednesday night from Logan Airport. After the fare he left the cab at the usual spot in Mattapan and headed home to Lawrence. Then he got a call from police to come back.
"The police made me open the door with the keys, they looked in and the kid was laying down in the back seat," he said. "I was surprised, I didn't know there was a child in the car, didn't know anything about that."
Police say there was confusion at drop-off with one parent thinking the other one had the child. When they immediately contacted police, the search was on, narrowed down to two possible cabs, and then to Jean Paul.
"The family didn't pay attention," Jean Paul said. "If they had paid attention this wouldn't have happened."
Police say the child slept through it all, and after the unexpected trip he was checked out by Boston EMS and was unharmed.
Jean Paul says he's been driving his own cab for more than 20 years, and as police investigate he says he shouldn't be held responsible. "I'm not wrong, if I'm wrong they can give me a citation, but I'm not wrong," he said.
