North Charleston police: Taxi driver stabbed after asking for fare from homeless rider

When a North Charleston taxi driver confronted him about payment, a 36-year-old homeless man who had hailed a ride from a bar stabbed the cabbie in the neck, the police said.

The suspected assailant, Bobby Thomas Lunstford Jr., is wanted on charges that include assault and battery with intent to kill.

The cabbie told the North Charleston Police Department that he picked up a man at Patrick’s Pub on Ashley River Road in West Ashley. He said the man was wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans, but he didn’t know the rider.

They traveled to the North Bluff Apartments at 7925 St. Ives Road in North Charleston, where the man asked to be taken to a nearby Arby’s restaurant instead.

That’s when the cab driver asked for fare money and was stabbed in the left side of his neck. The rider got out and ran away.

The cabbie drove to the parking lot of Dial America on Greenridge Road, where the police were called. Officers found him holding a rag to his neck. His shirt was soaked in blood.

Capt. Scott Deckard, a police spokesman, said this morning that warrants were being drafted and that Lunstford hadn’t been found. It wasn’t immediately known how detectives were able to implicate him in the assault.

Reach Andrew Knapp at 937-5414 or twitter.com/offlede.