Taxi driver robbed at gunpoint

FORT MYERS, Fla.- A day on the job took a dangerous turn for a taxi driver in Lee County.

The driver says two crooks pressed a gun to his head and demanded cash. It still haunts him as he goes to bed at night.
It happened during his break at the Westwood Apartments near Winkler Avenue and Metro Parkway.

“You are always supposed to be alert and aware of who you pick up,” said Ernest Sanders.

WINK News rode along with Sanders in his taxi. He is still traumatized after he was violently robbed inside his cab with a gun held to his head.

“I wake up thinking about it and I lay down thinking about it,” he said.

After nearly a week on the run, Fort Myers Police arrested 21-year old Byron Mowatt and another 16-year-old.

Police say it all happened last Monday night around 11 p.m. while Sanders was sitting in his cab at the Westwood Apartments eating dinner with a friend.

That’s when he says Mowatt aggressively opened his door.

“‘Just give it up, give it up.’ That is all they kept saying, ‘give it up,'” said Sanders.

“Putting a gun up to the side of my head and then to my neck after that,” said Sanders.

Police say the two thieves started putting their hands in Sanders pockets, trying to grab as much cash as they could.
The whole time, Sanders says he feared for his life.

“That gun could have went off,” he said. Sanders says eventually the two men gave up and ran off and got away with a little more than $20.

Both Mowatt and the 16-year-old are charged with robbery with a firearm.