Jennifer Guilbeault, 23, shown on video assaulting Shohel Mahmud after he began reciting prayer in Arabic
A New York woman who pepper-sprayed a Muslim Uber driver while he was praying has been indicted by the Manhattan district attorney on hate crime charges.
Jennifer Guilbeault, 23, is shown in a surveillance video repeatedly pepper-spraying her Uber driver, Shohel Mahmud. The assault took place in August on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, near the corner of east 65th Street and Lexington Avenue, shortly after Mahmud began reciting a prayer in Arabic.
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Guilbeault’s former employer, the public relations and marketing firm D Pagan Communications, wrote on X it is aware of her actions and “don’t condone this behavior”.
Imagine being so fearful that someone praying in another language triggers you to pepper spray them. What is wrong with people?
This story reminds me a lot of a cornerstore Deli in the ghetto side of (capital city of southern state).
It is run by a Bengali dude with two Arab cooks and an African American local. The name is likely ripped from a famous NY sandwich shop, but no one actually knows that.
The Arabs make most of the sandwiches and the African American specializes in salads.
You’ll usually find the two Arabs reciting out loud while they cook, everyone seems to know everyone, and the Bengali is running the cash register and rejecting phony bills.
The outside looks like a crackhouse warzone but the inside is an oasis lol. Always busy with people buying food or cornerstore items.
Objectively the best place in the city to get a philly sub, but you’ll never see anyone mention it outside of the ghetto area.
Point being that if someone asked me what defines America, I’d probably point to that place.
that sounds amazing.
i just watched the first season of a show called The Bear, crazy stressful Back of House restaurant environment, slaps on to my personal experience pretty well.
I guess I’d be irritated if I had to listen to prayer for my ride, but I think my worst reaction would be retracting a star or two.
How do you live in New York City, and still be this overtly racist?
There’s plenty of racist people in NYC just like there is anywhere.
Because it takes multiple generations to get rid of racism, and her lineage hasn’t caught up.
I’m glad she’s been indicted for a hate crime, but will Uber compensate the driver in any way? Of course not. He’s not an employee!
And if you click through to the surveillance video article, you see this:
Mahmud acknowledged the ordeal has hurt him financially, as he is the breadwinner of his family who currently lives in Bangladesh.
Good decision.
Why is it called “hate” crime
Because it is an attack on somebody for belonging to a group rather than something about themselves specifically.
https://www.justice.gov/hatecrimes/learn-about-hate-crimes#hatecrime
Hate crimes, by definition, are not an attack only against an individual, but cause deliberate harm to an entire community.
The crime is different, so they’re treated differently, of course. We also have different degrees of murder depending on the person’s motivation.
It’s treated differently because it is a different predictor of violence. I’m not a violent person (but, like most people, I could be brought to assault a person under the right circumstances), so as long as someone’s not terrorizing me or someone else, I probably won’t get violent. That’s not a big risk, but if all it took for me to get violent was someone exercising a different religion in front of me, I’d be a much bigger societal risk.
In short: seems like hate crimes would have a high risk of recidivism.
Why are yall downvoting a question? Fr there’s no indication this was asked in bad faith. Are yall just morons?
Yeah, sort of borderline “begs the question” here… A good indicator of sincerity in asking would be if OP of that question stuck around and actually engaged and thanked people that gave good answers - AFAIK they have not.
So again, borderline.
Sometimes I’ll ask a sincere question worded in a way that I didn’t realize implied anything, and get downvoted to hell. If anybody answers I’ll upvote, but I rarely want to stick around to explain why I don’t kick puppies or whatever.
Definitely a fair assessment.
There are people asking questions and there are people “asking questions” in an attempt to derail debate.
Honest question: what is up for debate regarding the case? I think all the facts are clear, no?
That’s correct, which is where my comments comes from. They aren’t curious about the definition of a hate crime, they are trying to insert doubt while feigning ignorance.
Again, with sincerity: did the woman who perpetrated the assault or her attorney give any public statement re: her motive? I saw in the video linked to the article said that the attorney, when asked by this reporter, had no comment. Was there anything ever released or documented about why she snapped?
What I’m getting at is did she attack him for being a man, a muslim, or a muslim and a man?
Furthermore, it’s not clear to me if she’s being charged with “vanilla” assault and battery or if there’s a hate crime charge on top of it. This may be my own fault for reading too quickly.Nevermind that. I re-read the aricle.
Guilbeault was officially charged in a state supreme court indictment “with one count each of Assault in the Second Degree as a Hate Crime, Assault in the Third Degree as a Hate Crime and Aggravated Harassment in the Second Degree”.
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I wish I could have seen this comment, too bad.
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She was obviously just protecting herself from a terrorist. /s
Yayyyy.
🤔 about the second part.
Did he just randomly start chanting and she freaked out? Why didn’t the just start praying during a fare?
Praying is not chanting. Somehow I doubt a Catholic saying a hail Mary would have ellicited the same response. It appears the DA agrees.
As to what happened, he was driving the car with the two passengers in the back seat. The driver and passengers were not talking to each other, or otherwise interacting. Video linked in the article shows her suddenly lunging towards him and spraying him in the face with pepper spray at point blank range.
Her friend tries to pull her off of him. He then tries to get out of the car, while she keeps spraying him, where he calls 911 and she’s arrested.
Wait… your description doesn’t include any praying either. Did he pray or not? It just looks like an attack.
It would make me uncomfortable if someone just started audibly praying while driving me though. Given the tone I might even take it as a threat on my life, if I felt like it was some “last rights” or “give me strength” shit that made me feel like they were about to off themselves with me in the car.
The solution would absolutely not be to pepper spray the driver though. That can only make my fears a reality.
Given the tone I might even take it as a threat on my life
That is an unhinged and deranged level of xenophobia.
Someone speaks foreign language
“Gasp! My life in in danger. I have been personally threatened.”
Making shit up online is fun. Strawman arguments don’t convince anyone of anything though just makes you look like a tool.
Islam is the 2nd largest religion on Earth. It’s not some piddly minority. When people are being weird Muslims it’s okay to call them out the same way there are hella weird Christians and Jews. I would say NOT doing so and handling a particular groups weirdos with kids gloves is just as xenophobic (but obviously not as harmful) as attacking someone for being different.
You’re basically saying they are less human than you and therefor should be excused from behaving normally in the society they are a part of, like they were a small child.
with kids gloves
*kid gloves
They’re called kid gloves because they’re made from baby goat.
The leather from baby goats is soft and supple and gives you more dexterity than normal leather gloves. If you were handling something that needed great care, you might want to wear kid gloves to have greater manual control.
Why would you handle someone with kids’ gloves? Are your hands very tiny?
You’re basically saying they are less human than you and therefor should be excused from behaving normally in the society they are a part of
There’s nothing abnormal about speaking a foreign language or praying. For all you know, he could have been praying for a safe journey.
(Or praying for the endurance to put up with a shitty passenger.)
Read my responses for the answer, pedant.
There is something abnormal about praying in a workplace. They shouldn’t be attacked, but it’s also not normal. I don’t care what religion they’re a part of, it would be strange regardless.
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He apprently was praying when she attacked him. Being Muslim, he needs to pray several times a day to stay devout. It’s likely he was reciting one of those prayers.
It looks clear that he was speaking in Arabic and she took that to mean that he should be viciously attacked. It’s unlikely she knew it was a prayer, so your religious fears above likely dont apply.
Hmm bad Muslim then, as I’m lead to believe from all the Muslims friends I have. You specifically don’t need to pray while traveling. Actively driving would obviously qualify.
I’m not going to speak to whether he was required to pray in that instance or not, but the fact remains she heard Arabic from a Muslim man and attacked him.
I assume him being a “bad Muslim” in your eyes doesn’t excuse the attack, right?
I already said it was wrong. Just because someone is a victim doesn’t make their behavior also not wrong though. There’s a time and a place for religious behavior.
So according to you praying randomly is bad religious behavior? Maybe he’s going through something and a silent prayer gives him relief.
Per the first amendment, that time and place are whenever and wherever you want. I’d assume that applies to inside of your own damn car.
