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.

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”.

  • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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    3 days ago

    Wait… your description doesn’t include any praying either. Did he pray or not? It just looks like an attack.

    Are you actually trying to argue that praying is justification for pepper spraying someone?

    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.

    What a completely unhinged fantasy world you live in where everyone who prays is out to kill you. What a hateful person you are.

        • Sarmyth@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Yes, with their own interpretation afterwords. What he quoted was me giving examples of things that would concern me, not a recitation of the events of the article.

          One of the ways your average literate person could know that was by the way I didn’t cite the article in any way or the fact that I was describing circumstances with examples unrelated to the Muslim faith.

          The first portion quoted was a response to someone saying he was praying and then when recounting the story they made no mention of praying. I asked for clarification because they literally excuded the information they implied was present. Then Lemmy started hallucinating.