A cabdriver was attacked Tuesday by a knife-wielding passenger who made anti-Muslim remarks, the police said.
The passenger, Michael Enright, 21, of Brewster, N.Y., hailed the cab at Second Avenue and East 24th Street around 6 p.m. Tuesday, the police said. Twenty blocks north, they said, he slashed and stabbed the 43-year-old driver in his throat, face and arm.
The driver, identified by the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, a drivers’ group, as Ahmed H. Sharif, 43, stopped the cab and approached a police officer on Third Avenue near 42nd Street. Mr. Enright was arrested at the scene.
According to the taxi workers’ alliance, Mr. Sharif’s fare started the ride asking him in a friendly way if he was Muslim, whether he was observing Ramadan, and how long he had been in the United States.
After falling silent for a few minutes, the passenger began cursing and screaming, and then yelled, “Assalamu alaikum — consider this a checkpoint!” and slashed Mr. Sharif across the neck, and then on the face from his nose to his upper lip, the alliance said. (“Assalamu alaikum” — “peace be with you” — is a traditional Muslim greeting.)
Both men were taken to Bellevue Hospital Center. The driver was in stable condition. A law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said Mr. Enright was “very drunk” at the time of the attack.
“I feel very sad,” Mr. Sharif said in a statement released by the taxi workers’ alliance. “I have been here more than 25 years. I have been driving a taxi more than 15 years. All my four kids were born here. I never feel this hopeless and insecure before.”
He added that “right now, the public sentiment is very serious” because of tensions over Park51, the proposed Islamic center that some critics call the “ground zero mosque.”
The police charged Mr. Enright with attempted murder as a hate crime, assault, aggravated harassment and criminal possession of a weapon. He was awaiting arraignment on Wednesday.
(Source: NY Times)
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9 Responses
“the proposed Islamic center that some critics call the “ground zero mosque.”
According to the NY Times, you have to be a “critic” to call it the ground zero mosque.
If you use that term you must be a racist islamaphobic right wing conservative.
We are not allowed to call it for what it is.
PachadYitzchakFan – if they rebuilt the Burlington store there, would you call it the Ground Zero Store?
“Ground Zero Mosque” is no less a misleading and lethal political slogan than are “right to die” or a “woman’s right to choose.” If you cannot stand up and condemn what happened to this fellow, than you have no right to be outraged when it happens to a Jew – you would be nothing more than a tribal zealot.
YonasonW:
The difference between the mosque and the store is that they specifically chose that location for a mosque in order to make a religious/political statement that is hurtful to millions of Americans.
The Burlington store was not.
And by the way, I do not condone this stabbing of an innocent man. It is terrible.
By the way, I have every right to be more outraged when a fellow Jew is hurt, than if the victim was not.
Both are terrible, but when it is another Jew it is family, and personal.
here we go…hateful words will lead to violence r’l
Dear PachadYitzchak”fan”; since it’s Elul, I feel the imperative to object. if you are referring to sefer Pachad Yitzchok from Harav Yitzchok Hutner zt’l, I must protest, this sefer is not, nor is any other, a ballgame or any other type of entertainment of which one could be deemed a “fan”, the term is demeaning, perhaps a dvar H’shem baza. please find a more appropriate term.
please forgive me, as, if I had a way of contacting you privately, I would’ve preferred doing that.
Dear Rt
I’m not sure I agree with you. I mean it in the most respectful way. Pachad Yitzchak is my favorite sefer, and I want to let the world know how delicious and engaging it is. Learning PY is like eating ice cream, only more stimulating
rt, I do agree with you about the term: PachadYitchakFan.
However, PachadYitzchakFan made a statement about one sentence in this article and he was jumped on. I don’t think PachadYitzchak wants any person, Jew or non-Jew to be attacked in such a way, C”V. But he is allowed to disagrees with Park51 or the Ground Zero Mosque. This Community Center is being built by Ground Zero to show off Islam’s accomplishments and the vast majority is against it. There is nothing wrong with opposing it.
I meant: the vast majority of Americans