A NEW YORK CABBIE WITH ANGER ISSUES? THAT NEVER HAPPENS! IT MUST BE JIHAD!

Here's a story Fox Nation has been flogging since yesterday:

Muslim Cabbie Arrested for Ramming Passengers in Manhattan

Omigod! Sudden jihad syndrome!

The truth, as reported by the New York Daily News, is a bit more prosaic:

A cabbie who refused to drive four friends in Manhattan home to the Bronx deliberately plowed his cab into them on Sunday, leaving one critically injured, police said.

Anthony Loreto, 22, a civil engineer, and three of his friends hailed a yellow cab about 4 a.m. in midtown after a night of clubbing, relatives and cops said.

They got in, but the hack, Mohammed Azam, 27, of Jackson Heights, Queens, refused to take them to the Bronx.

When the passengers argued he was legally obligated to take them to the Bronx, Azam instead drove them to the Midtown North Precinct stationhouse, believing cops would side with him, officials said.

The cabbie and his passengers went into the stationhouse, where cops told him he had to make the trip. Azam jumped back into his cab and drove at the four friends, now on the street, hitting three of them, and then fled, police said....

You want to know how I know that this wasn't a dirty filthy Muslim turning all terrorist Muslim-angry because of his angry evil terrorist Islamic Muslimness? Because he went to the freaking cops. And the passengers who weren't hospitalized all failed to report that the cabbie said, "Look here, officer, surely I have the right to kill as many crusader infidels as I please in order to help bring about the global caliphate -- correct? That's my right, isn't it?"



Ah, but Fox Nation readers know the truths the LIEberal media won't reveal. An FN commenter sagely observes:

I don't know what all the true facts are, but this man didn't hit HIMSELF with a taxi, that's for sure!

Er ... yes, that's true!

Even the wannabe right-wing site the Right Scoop, which initially ran with the Fox Nation slant, now thinks it's a bit much:

UPDATE: Commenter Tyler makes a fair point, one that I should have caught myself. It was actually Fox Nation that identified him as a Muslim and I made the mistake of reporting that as well. It's likely from his name that he is, however nothing validates that from the report so I've removed it from my post.

Well, yes. We have no idea what this guy believes, except that he believes he has the legal right to refuse a fare. (In New York City he doesn't, though fare refusal is an extremely common practice here, especially if you want to go to an outer borough.)

And even Fox Nation's corporate cousin, the New York Post, is treating this as the story of a guy who had an extraordinarily dangerous overreaction to a purely cab-related circumstance:

Hit-and-run taxi driver Mohammed Azam ran over passenger Anthony Loreto Jr. outside a Midtown police station after refusing to take him and his pals to The Bronx because the trip would have cost the hack $30, the Manhattan DA said yesterday.

Azam feared that the trip to the outer borough would make him late getting back to his cab depot for his shift change and that he'd have to pay a $30 fine, authorities said.

It would be nice to think Fox Nation would pull the thread, or at least remove "Muslim" from the headline, but that ain't gonna happen.