Audio clip
Ron Ogletree
Taxi service owner Brad McElrath said he tries to trust his clients and rarely asks for payment up front -- but after getting stiffed on a $788, all-night taxi trip, he's not so sure he'll keep that up.
"I still help people out. I'll still work with them. But not long distance," said the Fort Payne, Ala., business owner.
Mr. McElrath's stingy passenger was arrested early Thursday following the epic drive, when he threatened police officers and pretended to have a weapon.
Mr. McElrath, who owns Brad's Taxi Service, said he picked up Noel Perez, 39, around 11 a.m. Wednesday for a trip initially destined for a car dealership in Chattanooga.
"We ended up taking so many side roads, man, we ended up coming out of some place like Calhoun, Ga.," recalled Mr. McElrath, 34. "It was just ridiculous, man. It was wild."
He said he got so turned around he finally stopped to buy a GPS unit.
"I had to, to get back home, because he got us so lost," he said.
Seventeen hours, 350 miles and myriad wrong turns later, the taxi returned to Fort Payne around 4 a.m. Thursday, Mr. McElrath said.
That's when the issue of the $788 bill arose.
"He kept beating around the bush," Mr. McElrath said. "We rode around for an hour, because he said he needed to get the money. We stopped by two different banks, and he'd get back in the car but he never did have any money."
Mr. McElrath finally called police around 5 a.m.. Officers tried to discuss payment with Mr. Perez, who shoved his hand in his pocket and declared that he had a gun, according to Fort Payne Police Commissioner Ron Ogletree.
Police then used their Tasers on Mr. Perez and arrested him for disorderly conduct, theft of services and obstruction of government operations, Mr. Ogletree said.
"Our officers responded exactly as they should have," Mr. Ogletree said.
Mr. Perez has been released on bond but has a court date scheduled, he said.
Mr. Perez's family has paid about $300 of the cost of the taxi ride, Mr. McElrath said. He said the family told him Mr. Perez is typically on medication but had not been taking it recently.
"He seemed like a good guy and everything. I'm not sure what happened. I really feel sorry for the man, but then I kind of don't," he said.
Health care reporter Emily Bregel has worked at the Chattanooga Times Free Press since July 2006. She previously covered banking and wrote for the Life section. Emily, a native of Baltimore, Md., earned a bachelor’s degree in American Studies from Columbia University. She received a first-place award for feature writing from the East Tennessee Society of Professional Journalists’ Golden Press Card Contest for a 2009 article about a boy with a congenital heart defect. She ...
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