Honolulu Record, August 2, 1951, vol. 4 no. 1, p. 1

"Race" Against Taximan, Says Cop

Jay Verner, taxi driver, was bound over Monday by U. S. Commissioner Harry Steiner,. to the federal grand jury on charges of selling liquor without a license.

Chief witness against him was Jack B. Smith of the Honolulu police who testified that on June 17 he purchased a bottle of whiskey from Verner for $10. To Verner, as to close acquaintances on Maunakea St. where the driver operates from a stand, there is more significance to the case than meets the eye.

"If they actually got evidence on him then," asked one, "why did they wait five weeks to bring charges against him?"

Car Searched Before

Another, a Hawaiian, said: "It's not the first time the vice squad has been after him, even though he doesn't fool with stuff like that. Not so long ago, Shaffer was in his car searching it when he left it on the street for a moment."

Another time, Verner says, an officer told him while giving him a ticket for a minor traffic violation, "Your race is against you."

Verner is one of the very few Negro drivers operating in the city.

The taxi driver wonders if there may be some connection between the charge against him and an altercation he had a few nights before. Then a man in plain clothes kept asking the driver to "get him a woman," Verner says. Finally, because of the man's insistence, the driver was forced to be abrupt with him in order to discourage him..

Now Verner wonders if that "customer" may have been an officer on an undercover assignment.

When the driver asked police last week, on the night of his arrest, why there had been such a long wait between the time the evidence was allegedly gathered and his arrest, an officer told him. he says, "We know you're doing a lot of other stuff and we were waiting to get you on that, too."