BY STEFANO ESPOSITO | Staff Reporter
Here’s how to guarantee no one will ever insure you again: After you’ve been in an accident, immediately refuse to exchange information with the other driver, leave the scene of the crash and smash into any and all cars along your path to freedom.
That’s apparently what a 19-year-old Chicago man did last week in the Lake View neighborhood — and the bizarre episode was caught on video and posted online.
The incident began when the man, driving an SUV, rear-ended a City Service Taxi Association cab somewhere on the North Side. Then he sped away, according to the cab company president, Cometas Dilanjian.
“Our cabbie pulled over and he assumed this driver was going to pull over also,” Dilanjian said. Instead, the SUV driver sped away.
The amateur video captures the dramatic conclusion, when the cabdriver gets out of his vehicle in the 1400 block of West Belmont on Oct. 30 and demands the SUV driver do the same. The driver, at the wheel of a Nissan Murano, refuses and makes various attempts to drive around and back away from the furious cabbie.
Things take a bizarre turn when the cabdriver, wielding an unidentified object, attempts to smash the driver’s side window. That’s when the SUV driver plows into another cab on Belmont, backs into a parked car, sideswipes the angry cabbie’s car and hits one more car before heading westbound on Belmont.
The SUV driver was arrested about a block away, police said Wednesday. Kenzell Lesure, of the first block of North Lavergne in the Austin neighborhood, was charged with a host of misdemeanors, including driving without a license, aggravated assault, operating a vehicle with no insurance and criminal trespassing — because he was driving a stolen car, police said. He is due in court next month.
As for the cabbie, his car is in the shop with about $3,000 in damage, Dilanjian said.
“I’ve been talking to him for the last few days,” Dilanjian said. “We just saw this video this morning. I need to sit down with him. He’s been with us for many years.”
Email: sesposito@suntimes.com
Twitter: @slesposito