When two college students ran from Iwowari Wright’s taxi van after one of their credit cards was declined, she was resigned to accepting the loss of a $22 fare.
But before she got a chance to leave the University Village neighborhood where she dropped off the two men Saturday, they allegedly returned to demand the declined card and wound up beating Wright as she screamed for help.
“These guys could have killed me if God was not with me,” Wright said Sunday.
The two men — Sung Wong Chung, 22, of the 1100 block of West 14
t
h
Place, and Alexander Choi, 19, of the 3100 block of West Medill Avenue — were ordered held on $125,000 bond each for allegedly beating and robbing Wright early Saturday.
The two were both charged with felony aggravated robbery and aggravated battery of a taxi driver
Shortly before 2:30 a.m. Saturday, Wright stopped at 15
t
h
and Aberdeen streets, where Chung and Choi requested to be dropped off, she said.
One of the men handed Wright what appeared to be a Chase credit card. But when she called a dispatcher to get approval of the charge, the dispatcher told her it had been declined and was possibly fraudulent, Wright said.
The men then jumped out of the van and fled. Wright took a few minutes to report the skipped fare.
“Dispatch told me to just let it go,” said Wright, who drives a white Toyota van for City Service Taxi Association.
But the men returned shortly thereafter, she said.
One of the men pulled her out of the van while the other rummaged through the front passenger seat, she said.
“I was screaming, ‘Somebody help me! They’re going to kill me!'” said Wright, 56.
One of the men grabbed Wright’s phone, which she held with a cord around her wrist, and began beating her with it, she said.
On Sunday afternoon, Wright still had a bruise on her right wrist. Her right ankle also was swollen, she said.
A witness heard her screams and flagged down police officers and told them the attackers had fled into a nearby building, according to a police report. Police found them in a stairwell.
The suspects’ attorney, Mike Johnson, told Cook County Judge Jackie Portman that the two are UIC students and have no records. Several of the suspects’ family members sat in the courtroom Sunday as a prosecutor described the charges.
Johnson declined to comment Sunday.
Chung, a native of South Korea, asked police officers that the Korean Consulate be contacted.
Both suspects are scheduled to appear in court Feb. 25.
Wright, a native of Nigeria, is among a small number of licensed female cabdrivers in Chicago. City data show there are about 120 female licensed cabdrivers out of about 12,000 taxi drivers — or 1 percent.
Wright said she has been driving a taxi for seven years and often works through the night for 12 to 14 hours at a time.
Weekend nights are most lucrative for cabdrivers, said Wright, who sends some of her earnings to Nigeria, where her two children live.
Like other women who drive cabs for a living, Wright said she has dealt with her fair share of sexual harassment from male customers.
“You have to talk calm and nice and take him to his destination,” Wright said. “These are the types of things we have to deal with.”
Wright said she expects to stay home from work for a few days to heal. Until then, she will not be able to earn an income.
“I don’t know what I’ll do,” she said. “God is going to have to provide, I guess.”
