Five years ago, on Halloween, Sayfullo Saipov drove a rental truck into the bike lane between the Hudson River and the West Side Highway in Manhattan
Even if he hadn't killed eight cyclists, I would've been as terrified: I have ridden that lane a number of times, for transportation as well as recreation. For the cyclists who died that day, some of whom were tourists, it was most likely their only ride on that lane.
The fear and grief I have felt since then has turned to rage: Yesterday, during Saipov's trial, US Attorney Jason Richman recalled that the accused was "smiling" when he asked to hang the Islamic State flag in the hospital room where he was confined after the incident. "He was proud," Richman told the jurors. "He was happy about the terrorist attack...He had done what he came to do."
We don't have the death penalty in New York State. Federal law still allows for it, however, and since terrorism is a Federal crime, Saipov could be condemned. If he's not, he will be sentenced to life in prison.
Even his defense lawyers concede that Saipov carried out his attack. They argue, however, that he should be acquitted of a racketeering charge because they dispute the charge that he carried out the attack so that the Islamic State would allow him to join. They claim that to do something "so awful" (their words), he must already have been an IS member and that he "had an expectation that he would die by police shooting."
In other words, according to the defense, he wasn't carrying out a gang initiation rite. Instead, he was trying to be a martyr for the cause. How that absolves him of racketeering is beyond me, which is probably one reason why I'm not a lawyer.
Whatever Saipov's motives, to me he's no different from the motorist who yelled "More of you should be killed" to cyclists who staged a "die-in" where a truck driver ran down Sarah Schick, a 37-year-old mother of two. She was riding down a bike lane along Brooklyn's Ninth Street that is protected up from Prospect Park West to Third Avenue, but is separated from a major truck route by nothing more than a couple of lines of paint west of Third--at the exact point where a mixed residential and commercial zone turns into an industrial area. I know it well: I used to ride that way quite often when I was living in Park Slope--and there wasn't any bike lane at all on Ninth, or almost anywhere else in the neighborhood outside of Prospect Park.
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| Photo by Julianne Cuba for Streetsblog |
That motorist and Saipov are also no different from a colleague who, during my second year at Hostos, remarked, "When I see bicyclists, I'd love to run them down." When I told her I am a cyclist, she accused me of "overreacting" and complained to HR. When I told them about her comment, they said there was "nothing we can do" and questioned my motives for taking umbrage. "Well, that wasn't any different from saying I should die because I'm trans. She's saying I should die because of who I am." The HR person dismissed my comparison because cyclists aren't a "protected category" but admonished me to "watch what you say" because that faculty member was a member of a "protected minority"--as if I wasn't.
Anyway, I am disgusted by the way people can so casually call for, or even commit, violence against cyclists. While Saipov may not have been targeting cyclists because they were cyclists, I am guessing that he saw them as the "low-hanging fruit" to carry out his gang initiation or bid for martryrdom. In that sense, he is no different from the motorist or colleague I've mentioned.
