Steve Guarini, 49, a driver for Lenox Cab, was shot and killed in his taxi in Atlanta's Old Fourth Ward on Sunday, September 9, 2007. The Atlanta Police Department investigated, and the Washington Post's homicide database, which tracked killings in Atlanta from 2007 through 2017, lists his death as a homicide that remained open with no arrest.
According to news accounts summarized later that year, Guarini was fatally shot in the back while in his cab.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported his death the next day, September 10, 2007. Public accounts do not say whether he was picking up or dropping off a fare, whether money was taken, how many shots were fired, or whether he died at the scene or at a hospital, and no description of the gunman has been made public.
His killing came during a deadly stretch for metro Atlanta cab drivers. Three days earlier, on September 6, driver Berhanu Yassin, 45, was killed in his cab outside the Kensington MARTA station in DeKalb County. Dane Grobman, 54, was shot to death in his cab in DeKalb on November 7, and Tampico Taxi driver Juan Rubio-Castro, 27, was killed in his cab in Riverdale on December 9. Police did not publicly link the killings. "They want bullet-proof windows in their cabs," a dispatcher said in December 2007. "Some of them want to carry weapons. It's getting crazy." The city's taxi bureau director said he was pushing for an ordinance requiring cameras or partitions in every cab.
Little has been published about Guarini's own life beyond his work. He drove for Lenox Cab, a company serving the city's busy north side and downtown, and he appears on international memorial lists that record taxi drivers killed on the job. A later Atlanta Journal-Constitution story on attacks against cab drivers listed him again among the metro area's slain cabbies, a reminder that his death was not forgotten by people in the trade.
The Old Fourth Ward, just east of downtown, is one of Atlanta's historic neighborhoods, the birthplace of Martin Luther King Jr. In 2007 it was a mix of older homes, apartments and redeveloping lots. A cab stopped on a city street on a Sunday may have been seen by residents, passing drivers or another fare.
Steve Guarini's name also appears in a 2018 Washington Post investigation that listed thousands of homicide victims in major American cities whose killings had not led to an arrest.
Atlanta, the capital of Georgia and the center of a metro area of more than 5 million people, recorded roughly 75 to 130 homicides a year between 2007 and 2017. Most victims were young men killed with guns, and many of those killings never led to an arrest. Robberies and attacks on taxi drivers were a recurring danger in the metro area in those years.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Steve Guarini could be found in news archives or public records. More than 19 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who rode in or called for a Lenox cab in the Old Fourth Ward on September 9, 2007, or who heard talk afterward of a cab driver being shot, may be able to help. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a car seen leaving the area or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can call the Atlanta Police Department Homicide Unit at 404-546-4235, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers Greater Atlanta at 404-577-TIPS (404-577-8477), which may pay a cash reward for information that leads to an arrest.
