Cab ride from hell

In what police are calling a “road rage incident,” a man in a white Dodge pickup pulled up next to a taxi cab just after midnight on the morning of Sunday, Jan. 20, and shot two passengers in the back seat.

Ed Ort, a 48-year-old taxi driver and owner of Yellow Cab Company, reported passing the pickup on Main Street in downtown Chico after observing the suspect driving erratically, according to a Chico Police Department press release. The driver of the pickup—who was described to police as a light-skinned black man with dreadlocks wearing a dark ball cap—followed the cab until it reached East Third Avenue on The Esplanade, at which point the suspect pulled up next to the cab and fired multiple rounds at the taxi.

Following the shooting, Ort drove the two passengers—a 24-year-old Oroville woman and a 25-year-old man from Glenn—to Enloe Medical Center for non-life-threatening injuries.