The Muslim cab driver, a 38-year-old Moroccan immigrant who has requested anonymity out of fear for his safety and who has not been identified by police, said he picked a man up outside Rivers Casino at about 1 a.m. Thursday. During the trip to a residence on Second Avenue in Hazelwood, the driver said, the passenger began asking him about his background.
“He started the conversation and began to ask questions like, ‘You seem to be like a Pakistani guy. Are you from Pakistan?’ ” the driver said in an interview from his bed at UPMC Mercy, where he is being treated for a bullet wound in the upper back. “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. I told him ‘Actually, I’m against ISIS. I don’t like them.’ I even told him that they are killing innocent people. I noticed that he changed his tone and he began to satirize Muhammad, my prophet, and began to shift to his personal life. He mentioned that he has two kids and was in prison for some time.
“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 FBI is reviewing the shooting of a cab driver after a Muslim civil rights group asked the Justice Department to determine if it was a hate crime.
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