PUYALLUP, Wash. - Police have arrested a man who they say shot a cab driver early Thursday while trying to rob him.

Police said the Yellow Cab driver, a 36-year-old father of two, called 911 just after 1 a.m. to report that he'd been shot by a passenger that he picked up at the Emerald Queen Casino.

When officers arrived in the 100 block of 5th Avenue Northwest, they found the driver, Frazdag Eltahir of Seattle, suffering from three gunshot wounds. Despite his injuries, he was able to give police a description of his attacker.

When time came for the passenger to pay, he pulled out a gun and tried to rob the cab driver before shooting him, Eltahir told police.

An officer found a man who matched the description of the shooter about a half-mile from the scene, and the man was carrying a handgun.

The 31-year-old Tacoma man was interviewed by detectives and later booked into the Pierce County Jail for investigation of robbery and assault.

The cab driver was taken to St. Joseph's Hospital in Tacoma before being transferred to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

The cab driver's wife said her husband has bullet wounds in his right arm, right leg and abdomen and that doctors told her it would take him a year to recover.

Natalie Davis-Eltahir said her husband is an immigrant from Sudan who works seven days a week, 10 to 12 hours a day to provide for his family. Eltahir has six children, she said.

"We always talked about his safety and he always told me, you know, just to believe in him and he would know what to do," she said.

Drivers said Yellow Cab allows them to pass on certain customers if they don't feel safe giving them a ride. However, they said, it's not always easy to tell whether a passenger poses a threat.

"I don't know that there's a lot I can do differently," said driver Lance Winchell. "You never know who's going to jump in your car from one day to the next."