29 months ago, JWN began its investigation in to Oliver Patterson and the Organised Crime Group known colloquially as the Taxi Bois.
Now, in the wake of the death of former Mayoral candidate and long-time Patterson employee Paddy McGinty, it is time to bring this investigation to a close and leave further pursuits to the international authorities hunting the leader of an unpredictable and uncontainable band of wildcard criminals.
The earliest days of this investigation formed the origins of JAYWALKING NEWS and has been bubbling away under the surface ever since, even when editorial guidelines and police advice have become more prominent concerns, restricting public updates. There is no doubting my inexperience and naivety at the start of this journey – even putting dodgy graphic design aside (I was working in the back of my car with a free photo editor on the cheapest laptop I could afford – a far cry away from the resources of Weazel News).
In truth, I had little to go on to begin with. But my curiosity was not without merit. The drivers of Patterson’s Cab Company appeared to get away with more than your average cabbie in the eyes of law enforcement. My investigation was originally two-pronged, intending on uncovering corruption without the local police department as well as the taxi firm itself.
My initial coverage, in the second ever edition of JWN, received a response that I was ill-prepared for. Both I and the JAYWALKING brand were suddenly a known quantity in the criminal underbelly of the state. I was not a journalist, nor a reporter, regardless of how what I told myself and others. I was out of my depth – a fact that Patterson’s employees aimed to publicly remind me of at every available opportunity. But it got me recognised quickly, and my bold – if rough – style allowed me to stand out against the already established local Weazel News branch.
So I saw no choice but to continue. If I succeeded, I potentially expose a criminal organisation where local law enforcement had failed to do so and become a seasoned investigatory journalist overnight. I tracked Patterson employees to meetings with known criminal figures, frequently staked out their depot and witnessed numerous accounts of police activity. I watched as their propreiety – the “humble” and “successful” Oliver Patterson – was chauferred around the city and indeed the state, carrying himself as more of a mob boss than taxi boss.
But what soon came to preoccupy me more is what would happen if I failed – and just what the consequences of that might be. In July 2021, I was following a tip promising juicy information on the dealings of Patterson’s Cab Company. What happened next would remain a blur for two years.
One moment, I’m on my way to meet an alleged informant. The next, I wake up briefly with my face flat against cold concrete, wet sand and submerged in a pool of my own blood. The next thing I remember, I’m waking up in hospital post-surgery with god-knows-what done to my skull. I had been shot in the head and left to die.
It was only in 2023 that I would learn that Paddy McGinty pulled the trigger.
Although I had long sought the truth about my brush against the edge of this mortal coil, and had my long-term suspicions about who had been responsible, any evidence to back them up had perpetually eluded me. Even after learning that McGinty was my would-be assassin, the manner of which this information came to me would not have held up in a court of law – especially with the Los Santos Department of Justice in disarray. I had to come to terms with the fact that my darkest held views on Patterson’s Cab Company and many of its employees had always been correct – but I still had no way to prove it. Worse still, their efforts to discredit, humiliate and shame me had for a time succeeded.
In 2022, an unknown number of conspirators with Patterson Cab Company employees to frame me for the possession with intent to supply of Class A drugs. With the subsequant investigation to clear my name going cold, this charge would haunt me for well over a year, used to attack my personal integrity, the credibility of JWN and even in time (to my surprise as much as anyone’s), City Hall. Some of those who were involved in this conspiracy had since fled the state. Others still walk and work amongst us. They know who they are. Like Oliver Patterson and like Paddy McGinty, their time will come to be exposed and this organisation will openly name them.
For a period that I would be tempted to describe as Jay Walker’s Weird Month, I had a unique opportunity to work with Patterson’s Cab Company – and the Taxi Bois – up close. At a time when JWN was financially bankrupt and the Cab Company was starting from the bottom, I agreed to run a promotional campaign for Mr. Patterson. This gave me first-hand access to each of the company’s employees, taking as many photographs of their activities as I could. But they were smart enough to keep their worst tendancies at arms length to me. Nevertheless, despite the concerns for my safety – and the moral implications of engaging in a business transaction with the company – this was an invaluable period of my time and for the investigation.
These were no longer just faces on long lens photographs. They were flesh and blood, with distinct personalities each and all with their own personal aims and ambitions – which didn’t always align with that of the Company itself. Indeed it was also the closest I would ever get to Oliver Patterson himself. It was over this period that I learnt just how successful a businessman he was and how he could boast so. Make no mistake, Patterson is intelligent and canny. I have encountered few capable of making such good of such bad situations. His charisma, humor and executive charm when working a room – or potential mark – make it easy to see how he remained able to operate freely for so long – and why so many chose to follow or work with him so willingly.
For the briefest moment in time, I confess to having forgotton the purpose of my working close to him. For the smallest possible window, I had forgotton that this man may have sent one or more of the people I now called colleagues to execute me at a remote hydro dam. Before long, having been stabbed and almost drowned during the course of raising the profile of a resurgant Patterson’s Cab Company, this came back in to sharp focus. I cut ties with this new role and continued my investigation from afar.
In time, my faith in this investigation having results did begin to waver. The public harrassment I faced by Patterson employees – often resulting in property damage, namely to my car – seemed to have no limit nor counter. Indeed my trust in the system hit rock bottom when Oliver Patterson was elected Mayor of the City of Los Santos. What could was my insistence that this man was the head of an organised crime group when my readership trusted him enough to vote him in to office.
I had to readjust, and hope that the public spotlight would not serve Patterson well. Leaving the running of the Cab Company in the hands of another would tie his hands and any wrong move would lead to exposure. Sure enough, these newfound restraints were enough for one of his employees – Terry Bull – to be fired from the Company after he was unable to resist taunting me in public.
After a period of absence caused by an alleged heart attack – not confirmed by any Los Santos based medical professional – Patterson was voted out of City Hall and replaced by now-fellow Weazel News employee Oleander Addams, a colleague whose ability and drive to expose criminality I could have trusted to take over the investigation should anything have befell me.
But my priorities naturally shifted when I too found myself with a position at Los Santos City Hall. Yet my ultimate goal had been empowered. Exposing wrongdoing and protecting the citizens of Los Santos from harm were no strange aims for public servants in the administrations in which I have served. But they still lacked the backing and bulldozer-like resolve truly stamp out the type of criminality we were facing. But it wasn’t without trying.
The Addams, Bamsford and Jones Administrations took great strides towards subduing street gangs out of Davis and even imposed long overdue restrictions on The Lost Motorcycle Club, an organisation with which JWN had cause to believe had an association with the Taxi Bois – only recently released from Bolingbroke Penitentiary. But this investigation – and Los Santos – was shaken by the events that took place thereafter – when George Sinclair, former Editor of this branch of Weazel News, was elected Mayor of Los Santos at the third time of asking.
Sinclair had a long history of public competition with Oliver Patterson. Yet it never seemed to be Sinclair’s association with news organisations – or rivaling Mayoral campaigns – that prompted this adversarial stance. It always felt that Los Santos was not big enough for both of these larger than life figures who managed their public personas quite contrastingly. Where Patterson attempted to use his office to subdue potential exposure from news outlets, Sinclair immediately set out for maximum exposure.
His first order as Mayor was to oversee a surprise raid on the Patterson’s Cab Company depot – one that I would have a front row seat for. Even for all of Patterson’s careful and considered contingency plans, this bold act of Mayoral decree clearly did not make the list – as the raid was a success. I was priveldged to be present as Commissioner Hunter himself read out the contents seized from the taxi depot. Amongst them, items for the use of the production of cocaine.
A fitting flashpoint.
It was difficult not to get caught up in the moment. Finally, the hard evidence I had long chased of the deeds that I had long suspected, now in the hands of the Los Santos Police Department. A warrant issued for Patterson’s arrest thereafter should have been the end of the matter. Public exposure – even if not by my hands – and justice should soon follow. Unfortunately for all of us, it was not the end of the matter. Patterson disappeared, as did many of his long time employees. Long enough for a third party to considerably complicate matters.
On September 8th 2023, the Cartel attack on Los Santos law enforcement left Mission Row Police Department – and the evidence seized from the Cab Company – in a smouldering ruin. Patterson took this opportunity to re-emerge, when he was finally taken in to custody at La Mesa Police Department. It was here Mayor Sinclair brought me so that I could have my moment to see the man I had pursued for so long in cuffs – and to do a little characteristic boasting of his own. When I was given unlikely access to sit down with Oliver Patterson in an interrogation room that night, I felt a sense of unease.
This should have been a triumph. This should have felt like a conclusion. But where there should have been relief, there was only trepidation. Patterson – despite being chained to a chair – spoke like a man who still had a way out. A man who still had an exit strategy. As we reflected on our numerous run-ins over the years, he concluded that together we had both made matters worse for everyone. I didn’t quite know the full extent of this statement until later that night.
When I said my goodbyes to Mayor Sinclair at Las Mesa, I did not know that would be the last time I spoke to him. Oliver Patterson was released – and soon thereafter assassinated George Sinclair in Sandy Shores.
Oliver Patterson’s parting night of terror is known to many. A disruption to the city’s fuel supply. A bombing at Pillbox Hospital. His presumed death as a taxi cab collided with the gas pumps across from UwU Cafe. What is less known is that Paddy McGinty and his close friend Dana Scheidt kidnapped me in the wake of the hospital bombing. I do not know what their ultimate intent was – though I can guess – but they were interrupted by a call for help from their boss, to whom the authorities were closing in. McGinty dropped me off in the street and put a bullet through my foot, threatening that I would live to see those closest to me die one by one. As I recovered, I also recieved a phone call from Patterson himself confirming his departure. To date, he has not been located.
The criminal career of Oliver Patterson and the dealings of the Patterson Cab Company are fraught with collateral damage. Too many lives have been lost or destroyed by association and monitoring of the Taxi Bois. Which brings me back to where my story started.
On January 12th 2024, Paddy McGinty was shot dead by police following a shootout in the Palomino Highlands.
Shortly prior to this, McGinty made contact with me to tell his side of the story. A reminder to readers that by this point, I was well aware that McGinty had now possibly tried to take my life on multiple occasions. But this was the missing piece of the puzzle. With Patterson on the run, the route for quick justice ran through naming McGinty as my assailant once and for all. To speak with him alone following his last threat was a risk, yes. But one that this job and this investigation demanded. Our conversation proved revealing – moreso than I could have imagined. Not only further contextualising the crimes of Oliver Patterson but also McGinty’s long running association with him and possibly even his targetting of me.
McGinty spoke about a wife and daughter that I knew nothing about. Described as an amazing woman and a childhood sweetheart of Paddy, the course of Rosemary McGinty’s life ran through bass player, housewife and devoted mother to their six year old daughter. McGinty’s life was changed forever when a 4×4 driven erratically by Patterson careered in to their family car. Rosemary and daughter were declared dead on the scene. McGinty claimed that it was this event that led him to work towards Patterson’s ultimate downfall from within his organisation. Last we spoke, he vowed to personally track his former employer down (presumed to be somewhere in South America) and “put him down.” Not only this, but he claimed that the bullet that entered my skull was the result of dodgy aim – that the intent was only ever to scare, not to kill.
Many of these claims are hard to swallow. Indeed, some will never be verified – like the driver of the vehicle responsible for the deaths of McGinty’s family members. I cannot sit here today and tell you that what I was told was true without the evidence to back up the claims. Indeed, McGinty had plenty of time to enact his revenge on Patterson and failed to make good on his vow. But I can only repeat what was said in the hopes that it lends some closure to an investigation that has consumed my life in this country and in this city. Were it all to be true, however, then it would but be further damning proof of the range of collateral damage inflicted upon the world by Oliver Patterson and how he and his organisation assimilated and corrupted the lives of those it touched. Including my own.
It is to my deep regret that I was not able to get to this point sooner. It is to my further regret that Paddy McGinty did not live to see the inside of a jail cell. One can only assume that he knew that his time was running out, and, with his story told to me chose the oceanside shootout as his only escape from his crimes. For regardless of what he told me, there was never any redemption waiting for him.
Now, all hopes of the justice I hoped to inflict with this investigation rests on international authorities tracking down Oliver Patterson no matter where he may be held up. I do not know where he is. I do not know who is with him. But I choose to believe that one day, hopefully soon, he will be found.
Oliver Patterson must be tried and found guilty of his crimes. Not just for me. Not just for George Sinclair. Not just for Rosemary McGinty and her daughter. But for all who have been affected by him and his crime company.
There is an argument to be made that had I not begun this investigation, nature would have eventually run its course. That by aiming take down the head of the organisation, I only broke free the caged animals that would inflict so much harm on those in their path. But that is what organised crime groups such as the Taxi Bois want us to believe. That there is a system that we should just put up with. That figures like Patterson need to be in place to keep order and “peace.” That so long as the drugs, guns and money flow freely behind closed doors, nobody needs to get hurt. But somebody – sooner or later – always gets hurt.
There will always be a part of me that wishes I had left well enough alone. That perhaps lives could have been saved and carnage could have been averted if I had not shone a spotlight on Patterson’s Cab Company. But that would have been a dereliction of duty. An admission of defeat. An admission of failure.
My investigation in to Oliver Patterson and the Patterson Cab Company is over. But my mission to dig up the truth in the criminal underbelly of Los Santos continues.
Whether it takes 29 days, 29 months or 29 years – truth will out.
