What you should know
- A New York City taxi passenger credits the vehicle’s headrest with saving her life after a random bullet smashed the rear windshield of the yellow car.
- Hannah Warnaar told our sister network NBC New York that she was heading home from JFK International Airport shortly after midnight Monday when she heard a bang and glass hit her in the face.
- It is unclear who fired the gun, but it was not aimed at the taxi or Warnaar. The taxi driver said he saw two cars that appeared to be racing each other on the road before the gunshot hit the rear of the cab.
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NEW YORK – A New York City taxi passenger credited the vehicle’s headrest for saving her life after a random bullet smashed through the rear windshield of the yellow car, hitting her by just inches.
Hannah Warnaar told NBC New York in an exclusive interview that she was “pretty tired” and was heading home from JFK International Airport shortly after midnight Monday. He was checking his phone in the back of the cab when he heard a knock.
“Glass hit me in the face, so I ducked down. I realized I was bleeding,” Warnaar recalled. He did not immediately realize that a bullet had entered the back of the car and the taxi driver thought the loud noise was fireworks.
The driver then turned around and saw that the rear windshield had been completely broken, so he pulled off the Van Wyck Expressway and called the police.
After getting out of the taxi, Warnaar discovered how lucky she was to be alive. A bullet hole can be seen in the headrest of the back seat of the cabin where Warnaar says she was sitting.
“If I had hit the headrest at a slightly different angle or point. It’s literally exactly where my head was, so obviously it’s a horrible thought to think about,” he said.
It is unclear who fired the gun, but it was not aimed at the taxi or Warnaar. The taxi driver said he saw two cars that appeared to be racing each other on the road before the shot was fired.
The shooting is among the growing number of incidents of gun violence in the city this year, which increased 18% from 2020. As part of recent local and federal efforts to curb the shootings, the governor of Nueva York’s Andrew Cuomo announced last week that the state is investing $ 16 million to fund job training and job placement programs in the 20 cities hardest hit by gun violence.
New York City mayoral candidates Democrat Eric Adams and Republican Curtis Sliwa have raised concerns about the safety of residents and tourists as the five boroughs seek to recover from the pandemic, but Warnaar says he will not allow Let a shooting change your opinion of the city.
“I feel like it’s such a random event. It’s like being struck by lightning,” Warnaar said. “The possibility of it happening twice seems non-existent. So if this were to cloud my perspective of New York it would be ridiculous.”
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