Francisco Solano Arrested In NYC Cabbie Biting & Beating

NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Police have made an arrest in the case of a taxi driver who was attacked earlier in October.

Francisco Solano, 42, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with misdemeanor assault in the Oct. 2 incident in which cabbie Haroon Rashid was punched and bitten.

The incident generated controversy because Rashid and the New York Taxi Workers Alliance said that police responding at the scene told Rashid and his assailant they could both go free or go to jail.

"I was feeling shock that this passenger I just served would punch me and try to choke me then bite me. Then the police just let him go, like my blood was nothing. I was helpless like I never feel in 15 years of driving," Rashid said earlier this month.

On Wednesday, Bhairavi Desai, Executive Director of the Taxi Workers Alliance, told 1010 WINS that "some justice has been served."

"It's one thing that taxi drivers already worry about -- the dangerous conditions. You know, whether or not the passenger in the back seat is someone with a violent past. To also worry that the police won't protect you, is absolutely unconscionable," she said.

Desai said she hoped that the incident would signal a "systematic change" at the Police Department "where [authorities] don't continue to look at taxi drivers as second-class citizens and ignore our right to be protected."

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