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”.
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.
Are you actually trying to argue that praying is justification for pepper spraying someone?
What a completely unhinged fantasy world you live in where everyone who prays is out to kill you. What a hateful person you are.
Nope didn’t argue either of those things. You’ve just made that up.
They quoted you, lol
That is an unhinged and deranged level of xenophobia.
Explain. There is no xenophobia in my comment. Which “other” am I referring to? Lemmy trolls pearl clutching again. Get real.
Muslim man: *prays*
You: “I TAKE THAT AS A THREAT ON MY LIFE!”
Ain’t got a problem with Muslims. Got a problem with audibly praying while you’re driving me. Just like I’d have a problem with you having an intimate personal phone call with me in the car.
I sincerely hope you do not own any pepper spray.
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I’m sure they’re real torn up that some dumbass on the Internet is disappointed in them 🤣
Then you shouldn’t be a taxi/Uber/etc driver.
Because i don’t have a problem with Muslims?
Assuming something malicious is happening because a language is used when its not yours sounds exactly like xenophobia
Didn’t express a muslim prayer in my response. Actually referenced common Christian phrases. The xenophobia is all in your mind.
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.
*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?
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.
How other people pray is none of your business. You don’t get to decide what is “normal”. If other peoples’ prayers upset you, then you can die mad for all I care.
I don’t have to decide what is normal. I can experience what is normal. I don’t get mad when people pray, I just don’t like it done in front of me while I am trapped in a small space with them.
Unless I’m paying them to take me somewhere, then it’s definitely my business why they aren’t doing that.
Shit is rarely just black and white as much as we’d all like that to be the case.
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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.
If it were silent prayer they wouldn’t have known he was doing it unless his hands were off the wheel while driving, which would be concerning in its own right.
Randomly praying in private is fine. Praying on the job in the middle of the task you are paid for is fucking weird and bad. It’s an Uber driver. Fares are very rarely over 30 minutes and probably more commonly less. Pray in between. There is no doctrine mandating it at such an interval that it would interfere with this work in a way that would require special allowances. IN FACT, there are special allowances within the religion that permit not adhering to the 5 prayer routine during acts of travel or when it could be deemed unsafe, all of which would apply to the act of driving.
But why? What if this dude feels personally called to speak with god for several hours a day? I’d consider Uber a fairly adaptable job that works for that.
There’s a difference between weird and bad. Is it weird to pray aloud in front of others? A little, I guess, but that’s not a reason that he shouldn’t do it and it doesn’t make it bad.
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.
Not when your car is your workplace. We’ve seen what happens when people are allowed to practice their religion however they please. Being 2 feet away from someone in a moving vehicle that you’ve paid for transportation in is not appropriate. We’ve learned the 1st amendment doesn’t permit you to practice your religion under whatever circumstances you wish. ALSO the law should never be used as a barometer for right and wrong. We often hope it aligns but far too often we see it does not.