Second Shooting in 5 Weeks : Cab Company Takes Women Off Night Duty

Women drivers for Coast Cab have been pulled off night shifts following what police described as the “brutal and senseless� shooting of driver Sharyn Kamrath on Tuesday night.

Kamrath, 40, who was shot through the neck and left to die on the shoulder of Gilman Drive, was in fair condition late Wednesday night at Scripps Memorial Hospital.

“She’s paralyzed from the neck down and is practically incapable of speaking,� said supervising nurse Cathy Diss.

A passing motorist noticed Kamrath at 10:30 p.m. Tuesday in the 8100 block of Gilman Drive, near Interstate 5 in La Jolla. “It was pure chance that someone saw her; if they hadn’t stopped she could have easily bled to death,� said San Diego Police Lt. Doug Price.

Linda Sue Younger, a Yellow Cab driver, was found shot to death in her cab June 27 in Old Town. Price said the two shootings may be related. “It certainly is a possibility, but it would be premature to say for sure whether it was the same man,� he said.

Police reconstructed Kamrath’s shooting from “abbreviated� interviews with Kamrath and believe that she picked up a male passenger at 6th Avenue and Broadway downtown.

Kamrath drove the man to La Jolla, where he robbed her, then shot her in the back of the neck and dumped her body on the side of the road.

Kamrath had less than $10 with her at the time, Price said.

Shortly after midnight Tuesday, Kamrath’s cab was found abandoned at 4th Avenue and Upas Street in Hillcrest by another cabdriver. The weapon was not recovered, and police would release no description of the assailant.

Police have not issued an advisory to other female cabdrivers in the city, Price said. “I think you’ll find that they all know what has happened; they have a very tight communication network,� he added.

But Jeff Hano, general manager of Coast Cab, said that he has temporarily taken his women drivers off night shifts. “We want to find out whether this is just an isolated incident or if we have a real crazy out there,� he said.

Hano said that while cabdrivers are robbed fairly frequently, this was the first time that one of his drivers had been seriously wounded.

Asked whether he thought that women drivers were in particular danger, Hano said: “It appears that (her assailant) flagged her down off the street downtown, and it’s awfully hard to tell someone’s sex under those conditions.�

Hano said that Kamrath, who lives at the St. Vincent DePaul homeless shelter downtown, had been a cabdriver for four months and has one child.

Police are still trying to find the bullet that was fired through Kamrath’s neck to determine whether it came from the same .25-caliber handgun with which Younger was shot.