Another anti-Muslim hate crime. In Pittsburgh, a Muslim taxi driver was hospitalized after being shot in the back on Thanksgiving Day by a passenger who questioned him about his citizenship and ties to terrorism.
Muslim taxi driver shot on Thanksgiving in Hazelwood calls attack a hate crime
The driver, a 38-year-old Moroccan immigrant who is requesting to remain anonymous, picked up a passenger outside the Rivers Casino early Thursday morning. During the ride, the man began asking the driver about his background, and questioned him about ISIS.
"He started the conversation and began to ask questions like, 'You seem to be like a Pakistani guy. Are you from Pakistan?'" the driver told the Pittsburg Post-Gazette. "And I said, 'No, I'm from Morocco. But I'm an American guy.' Then he continued the conversation. He began to speak about ISIS killing people."
When they reached his destination, the passenger asked the driver to wait because he forgot his wallet in the house. Minutes later, the man emerged from the house carrying a rifle. That's when the driver took off, but not before the man fired several shots at him:
"So it was this kind of stuff until we got to his destination. He asked me to wait for a little bit because he forgot his wallet in the house. I waited for just five minutes, I think, and I noticed that he came out of the house carrying a rifle in his hand. I noticed him coming toward me. I didn’t hesitate. I [made] a fast decision to leave and drove my taxi away because I felt he was going to do something. There is danger. He would shoot me or something. I felt like he had the intention to kill me."
The driver said that as he sped away he heard a couple of gunshots, one of which blasted out the back window of his cab and struck him. The incident occurred between Flowers Avenue and Tecumseh Street, and he was able to drive a couple of blocks further to Mansion Street, he said, where he had to pull over. He then waved down a passing car and got someone to call the police.
The driver was taken to the hospital, where he is recovering from a bullet wound in the upper back.
Police are investigating the shooting, but apparently have not yet determined whether the incident was motivated by the driver's race or religion. So what the hell was it motivated by? After aggressive ranting about terrorism and questioning the brown driver's citizenship, the guy shot at the cab -- while it was speeding away -- because he didn't want to pay the fare? This shit was a hate crime, people.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, is calling on the Justice Department to investigate the incident as a hate crime.
More here: Passenger rants about Islamic State before shooting Muslim taxi driver in back