By SCOTT GUTIERREZ
P-I REPORTER
Saturday, July 28, 2007
SEATTLE - Seattle taxi drivers will pay their respects Saturday to Jagjit Singh, the 43-year-old driver who was murdered and set ablaze in Sea-Tac earlier this month.
But the driver's wife, who still is in India, has been denied a U.S. visa to attend, fellow cab drivers said.
Singh's wife hoped to attend her husband's funeral on Saturday. Seattle cab drivers raised thousands of dollars hoping to fly her to Seattle in time for the service. But her visa application was denied.
"It's very sad," said Gurcharan Dhaliwal, part owner of Farwest Taxi, the company that Singh worked for.
Singh was killed July 10 after someone called Farwest just after 2:30 a.m. to request a cab to a home in the 3800 block of South 177th Street in SeaTac. The killer then set his cab on fire. On Monday, King County sheriff's investigators arrested the suspect, Earnest L. Collins, Jr., 18, after tracking him to Chicago. He has been charged with first-degree murder.
Singh worked overnight shifts to earn enough money to bring his wife to the United States. His wife is in her 20s and had recently graduated from a university in India, Dhaliwal said. She lives in the Punjab state in the northern India. The couple had no children, he said.
Farwest raised about $10,000 to fly Singh's wife to Seattle. Other cab companies and customers also donated, Dhaliwal said. "It didn't matter that they were Indian, Somali or Ehtiopian," he said.
Taxi drivers plan a funeral service and procession scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m. Saturday at Tyee High School at 4424 S. 188th St. in SeaTac.
Source: Seattle P-I, July 28, 2007