The funeral service for Uber driver Fausto Luna turned into an angry protest against the Taxi and Limousine Commission. Luna who took his own life by jumping in front of a subway last week became the seventh driver this year to commit suicide because of his failing financial situation.
When Taxi and Livery Cab Commissioner Meera Josi stopped by the service to pay her respects to the drivers family she was chased back to the subway by the mob who were chanting "Murderer!"
Bhairavi Desai, the Executive Director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance union told the New York Post that laying the blame for the deaths of the drivers on the TLC, "Is not that simplistic. There are a lot of forces at work here, and who is mostly to blame are the companies."
TLC spokesman Allan Fromberg, who denied that Commissioner Josi was chased from the service said, "A group of individuals with a very different agenda hijacked the vigil with some of the most hateful and divisive language I've ever heard."
Fromberg added, "When it became clear that their activities wouldn't allow for anyone to say or hear any constructive messages, we left so as not to allow this group to continue to detract from the unity that by all rights should have been the center of the event."
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