Almost a week after a Muslim yellow taxi driver was brutally slashed; his alleged attacker was indicted on charges of second-degree attempted murder and first-degree assault as hate crimes.
Ahmed Sharif from Queens said his drunken attacker Michael Enright told him, “As-salaam alaikum”– which means “peace be unto you” in Arabic before slashing him in the neck and arms in Manhattan.
“I saw so much anger in his face and I pleaded for my life, ‘Why are you killing me? Please stop killing me,’” said 43-year-old Sharif of the Tuesday, August 24 attack.
Enright, , a 21-year-old film student, who recently returned from Afghanistan and volunteered with a group promoting religious tolerance, was embedded with a Marine Corps crew to film a documentary about front-line troops as part of a project for the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, where he is a student.
Police said that Sharif was slashed through an opening on the side of the taxi’s protective partition. Once Sharif was able to scramble out of the taxi, he locked the doors and then called 9-1-1. An officer on patrol nearby arrived to find Enright sprawled out on the street, having fallen after climbing out one of the cab’s back windows.
At first the officer thought Enright had been hit by a car. But after speaking to Sharif, police arrested Enright and was found so intoxicated that he was rushed to Bellevue Hospital with Sharif who was treated for his facial wounds and released later that night.
“I was very sad,” said Sharif in the statement released through the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA). “I have been here for more than 25 years. I have been driving a taxi more than 15 years. All my four kids were born here. I’ve never felt so hopeless and insecure before.”
The shaken-up cabby accepted Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s invitation to meet him at City Hall on Thursday, August 26.
“The attack runs counter to everything the New Yorkers believe, no matter what God we may pray to,” Bloomberg said.
During his visit to City Hall, Bloomberg gave his children pencils and T-shirts that said “I’m An Official New Yorker” and “NYPD.” The youngest girl got “I love NY” socks.
“This should never have happened and hopefully won’t happen again,” said Bloomberg. “Hopefully, people will understand that we can have a discourse. That’s what the First Amendment is all about. That’s what America is all about.”
Mursal Jaffrey, a Queens College student and resident of Queens, who is Muslim, said he was distraught when he heard about Sharif’s attacked and it made him think about the discrimination Muslims face.
“I have lived in New York my whole life, being Muslim has made my family feel different at times and looked upon as an outcast,” Jaffrey said. “After 9/11, I have witnessed much discrimination for the Muslim American community, but I hold trust and faith in my country and that one day we will all share equal rights.”
