The city’s Office of Human Rights launched a “director’s inquiry” this week into the D.C. Taxicab Commission’s handling of complaints that city cabs are not picking up customers based on their race or disability.

The inquiry comes in response a WUSA9 undercover investigation that found that 33 percent of cab drivers passed by black passengers trying to hail them, while none passed a white passenger. Councilmember and mayoral candidate Tommy Wells subsequently called on OHR to investigate WUSA’s findings.

OHR is referring to its investigation as a director’s inquiry because the probe wasn’t prompted by a specific complaint to the office,  according to OHR’s director of policy and communications, Elliot Imse. OHR has also received complaints in the past from customers accusing cab drivers of discriminatory practices.

In the letter toCommission Chairman Ron Linton, OHR requested that the commission submit a number of pieces of information and documents, including the number of complaints the commission received for “failure to haul” since January 2012 and the investigation record of the complaints.

“DCTC intends to fully and completely respond to the inquiry from OHR,” commission spokesman Neville Waters wrote in an email.

In a letter to Wells, OHR said it would launch the inquiry Monday, January 6. “OHR has a long history of acting on concerns of disparate treatment brought forward by the public and specific communities seeking transportation by taxi, and has launched several initiatives aimed at reducing such discrimination,” the letter reads.

The Cab Commission announced Tuesday it has been conducting undercover operations of its own and future operations will focus on drivers refusing to pick up black passengers. The investigation has so far found that out of 91 tested rides, there were eight instances of refusal to haul.

Read OHR’s letters to Linton and Wells below:

[documentcloud url=”https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1003428-ohr-letter-to-dctc-1-6-14.html”]

[documentcloud url=”https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1003426-wells-taxidiscrimination-010214.html”]

Photo by Darrow Montgomery.