First Nations woman says she was attacked by Winnipeg cab driver, dragged by vehicle
'My baby girl may not be here today had she not fought for her freedom,' says mom of Serenity Morrisseau, 19
WARNING: This story contains details and images that may be disturbing.
A 19-year-old Winnipeg woman has bruises, scratches and broken fingernails she says are the result of a terrifying cab ride on the weekend — but the cab company claims it was the driver who was attacked.
Serenity Morrisseau says a Unicity Taxi driver assaulted her and locked her inside the cab, speeding off in the early hours of Sunday morning, leaving two of her friends standing in the middle of the road.
"I don't know where I would have ended up. I don't know where he was trying to take me," she said at a news conference Tuesday in the office of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs.
Satwinder Shahi, Unicity's general manager, says videos from inside the taxi, which have been downloaded for police, will show that the driver was the one who was attacked.
"He was trying to save himself" from Morrisseau's friends, who were assaulting him, Shahi said.
He says the driver stopped the car to let Morrisseau out as soon as he was far enough from the two other girls.
Police say they are investigating the incident and have met with both Morrisseau and the cab driver.
"Each reported an assault and had visible injuries," a statement from police said.
The incident started shortly after Morrisseau and her friends first got into the cab at The Forks skatepark around 1 a.m. Sunday, heading to the city's West End.
The cab stopped beside another taxi at a red light on Portage Avenue, near Carlton Street. The driver of the other cab and a passenger yelled for the girls in Morrisseau's cab to go party with them, she said.
The girls laughed it off as a joke until their own driver started suggesting it, she said.
Morrisseau told him he shouldn't be suggesting that without knowing their ages. Her friends are 18 and 20.
"You're supposed to be in charge of our safety while we're in your cab," she says she told the driver, which "angered him a lot. That was kind of when things became out of control."
At Portage and Arlington Street, the driver slammed on the brakes and began yelling at the girls. He turned the corner on to Arlington and stopped again before getting out of the car.
Her two friends also jumped out, but Morrisseau didn't have a chance because she was sitting behind the driver's seat.
"He had stepped out of the vehicle and just turned and he was at me. My window was rolled down and he took four shots [punches] at my face and my head," she said.
Video posted to Facebook
He then jumped back into the car to drive away. One of Morrisseau's friends ran over to stop him but the driver shoved the friend onto the road and closed his door, Morrisseau said, and then locked her door.
The car pulled away as Morrisseau and her friends screamed for the driver to stop. In a dark video posted on Facebook, the voices of two women can be heard swearing and shouting for the driver to unlock Morrisseau's door.
The car can then be heard driving away while another voice fading into the distance screams "help me."
At one point, Morrisseau said she got her door unlocked and opened it. She "kind of fell out a little bit" so that her legs were dangling, the toes of her shoes dragging along the pavement, she said.
"I could feel the burning on my feet," Morrisseau said, adding she thought about letting go and falling out, but she could see a car behind the cab.
"So I pulled myself up and as I was doing that I was screaming for help, waving my body outside of the cab."
Morrisseau says in desperation, she squeezed her hand between ceiling of the cab and the Plexiglas shield separating the driver from rear passengers. She clawed at the driver's forehead and dug in her nails, breaking several of them and causing her fingers to bleed.
That forced the driver to stop at the intersection of Arlington and St. Matthews Avenue. He got out and dragged Morrisseau from the cab onto the road, she said.
A cyclist and two people in a car, who had seen the commotion and followed the cab until it stopped, went to Morrisseau's aid. The people in the car also called 911 as the cab drove away.
Safety concerns for First Nations people: AMC
Morrisseau's mom, musician Tracy Bone, was playing a show at the time of the incident and found a series of messages on her phone afterward.
Bone said she was filled with a feeling of helplessness when she heard what happened.
"I think it is always a mother's worst fear for something like that to ever happen," she said.
She posted photos of Morrisseau's injuries on Facebook, along with the video of the screaming, and thanked the "angels" who helped her daughter afterwards.
"My baby girl may not be here today had she not fought for her freedom and won," Bone wrote in her post.
The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, which hosted Tuesday's news conference, said the woman shared her story to raise awareness of "the safety concerns of First Nations regarding taxis."
"Too often, First Nations people are targeted and attacked while using taxi services," the AMC said in a news release. "Unfortunately, these stories are seldom heard by the public."
Driver was attacked, frightened: cab company
Shahi, however, said his driver is the one who feels fortunate to have gotten away. The driver would not speak to reporters on Tuesday because he was too nervous and still scared, Shahi said. The driver is not currently working, he said.
When the girls were picked up, they were drunk and ordered the driver to go to a liquor vendor, where they bought more alcohol and opened it in the cab, Shahi said.
They then started bothering the driver, rattling the shield and grabbing at him and the taxi meter. When the car pulled up next to the other cab on Portage, the situation was getting worse and the driver suggested the girls just get out, Shahi said.
By the time the car reached Arlington, the driver was frightened and got out to walk away, Shahi said. He claims Morrisseau's friends attacked him and he scrambled to get back in. He drove another block before asking Morrisseau to leave, Shahi said.
The driver was bruised and his shirt torn, according to Shahi.
Although taxis have a button that turns on an emergency light on the car's roof, the driver never activated it because he was too panicked to think of it, Shahi said.
He denied the driver ever hit Morrisseau but couldn't say where her injuries came from. He was also unaware she was allegedly dragged.
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With files from Holly Caruk