Michael Enright formally accused of stabbing cabbie driver
Michael Enright’s attorney, the New York City student accused of attempted murder as a hate crime for stabbing a Muslim cab driver, says that his client had not acted because he hates the Muslims.
Enright is a filmmaker and School of Visual Arts senior from New York which has already had conflicts with the law involving alcohol at only 21 years old, and the police says that the Tuesday attack is probably due to drinking too. Enright, participated at a filmmaking trip to Afghanistan in May, and when he was arrested he had on him two notebooks containing “biased sentiments” from that period. Police sources declared off the record that the notebooks described Afghans as ungrateful for the American military presence in Afghanistan, but the Associated Press reports that police declared the notebooks do not contain anti-Muslim messages. Mike Bloomberg, the New York City mayor, met with the victim and his family and gave Ahmed Sharif ‘s four children gift bags containing “I Love New York” and “I’m a New Yorker” t-shirts. Bloomberg was asked if he thought that the attack is connected to the controversy over plans to build an Islamic cultural center and mosque near Ground Zero, but the mayor sais that he did not know, and whatever the reasons this was a horrible thing to do.
The Tuesday attack began after Enright asked victim Ahmed Sharif if he was a Muslim and he confirmed, so people immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was caused by the plans to build a mosque near the site of the 9/11 World Trade Center terrorist attack. Bloomberg backed the Islamic center’s construction and tried to assure Sharif during their meeting that there is no ethnic or religious bias in New York. Salam al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, believes that the plans for building the Ground Zero mosque have started anti-Islamic manifests. Sharif has been living in the United States for 25 years and has been working on a cab for the last 15 years seems to believe that the attack is caused by the debate the Islamic center and warns all the other cab drivers to be careful because it might happen again. Javaid Tariq, cofounder of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, the representative of the drivers, asks the politicians to cool down the controversy and minimize the issue. Enright was charged with attempted murder in the second degree as a hate crime, assault in the first degree as a hate crime and criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree.
He slashed Sharif across the face, neck and shoulders with a knife while Sharif asked him not to kill him. Sharif was able to pull the car on the side of the road and lock Enright in the back seat before calling the police. They were both taken to Bellevue Hospital where Enright was declared an emotionally-disturbed person. Enright traveled to Afghanistan with Intersections International, an organization promoting freedom of faith and has supported the Islamic cultural center’s construction.
