Three people punched and kicked a taxi driver during a fracas in the University Plaza

Thursday evening, and one of the assailants was a woman who beat the cabbie with her metal

cane, Amherst police reported.

The incident occurred at about 6:30 p.m., when a 56-year-old man was backing up his cab. A

man ran up to his vehicle window and complained that the driver almost struck him.

Police received conflicting reports about what happened next, but the cab driver either got

out of his vehicle or was pulled out.

He then was punched and kicked by the other man and two women, and struck over the head

with the metal cane, police said.

Two youngest combatants, Jessica Robins, 22, of Minnesota Avenue, Buffalo, and Henry

Robins, 27, of Langfield Avenue, were charged with third-degree assault, a misdemeanor. Police

said it was not immediately clear how the two might be related.

Dechantel Baker, 46, of Stockbridge Avenue, the woman with the cane, was charged with

second-degree assault, a felony, Amherst police said.

"She's charged with the more serious crime, because she's accused of using a weapon ...

albeit a makeshift weapon like a cane," Amherst Assistant Police Chief Timothy M. Green said.

Under New York State law, the felony assault charge is filed when the attacker is accused

of using "a deadly weapon or a dangerous instrument."

The cab driver was treated at the scene for an inch-and-a-half-long cut on his head, plus

other cuts and abrasions, police said.