Driver in Durham taxi robbery: 'It went real south quick'

Gray was one of two cab drivers robbed at knifepoint last weekend.

Rodrecus Lamar Canady, 32, was arrested Thursday and charged in both incidents. Police were able to track him down by the phones used to call the cabs, authorities said.

"It just went south, real, real south. It seemed like it went real south quick," Gray said Friday. "It’s just a blessing that, I think, I’m here."

Gray said he grabbed the knife being held against his throat and struggled with Canady before jumping out of his cab. The vehicle then crashed into a utility pole in the 600 block of Burlington Avenue.

He tried to get away, but he said Canady chased him down.

"He followed me, [and] I fell. He stood over me with the knife and everything like that. I gave my money up," Gray said, noting he lost $110.

Canady is charged with robbery with a dangerous weapon and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury in the incident. He also has been charged with attempted robbery with a dangerous weapon and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury in a Sunday night robbery of a cabbie near the intersection of East Cornwallis Road and East Weaver Street.

In that second incident, the driver also struggled with the knife-wielding robber, who then fled without getting any money.

"I'm hoping that this other driver comes out OK too, and I'm praying for him and his family because that's their living," said Brenda Gray, Rayvon Gray's mother.

"He's coming along, praise the Lord," she said of her son. "He has to have surgery, but he's doing pretty good. God is good."

Gray has to undergo surgery next Monday to repair injuries to his hand, including addressing nerve damage and having a rod put in one of his fingers. Doctors have told him it will take months for him to regain movement in the finger.

{{img src="image-2" responsive="1" title="Rayvon Gray's taxi crashed into a utility pole while he was trying to escape a robbery."

The medical costs and paying for repairs to his cab will eat up much of his savings, he said.

"I try to give everybody the benefit of the doubt. He took that part of Rayvon away from me. It's going to be hard now to try to trust people. I hate that he done that," he said. "He definitely changed my outlook on how, from now on out, I will treat customers in the back seat."

Gray said he plans to return to business as soon as he's able.

"That's my heart. That's what I like doing," he said.

Canady was being held Friday in the Durham County jail under a $1 million bond. He has numerous robbery, burglary and larceny convictions dating to 2005 and was released from prison in December, according to Department of Public Safety records.