Man charged in NY attack was a truck driver, ‘aggressive’
NEW YORK — Some saw him as disagreeable and argumentative, others as quiet and prayerful. He was said to be hardworking but also seemed to simmer with disillusionment over financial and career setbacks.
As Sayfullo Saipov lay in a hospital bed Wednesday, police tried to piece together the life of the 29-year-old immigrant accused of driving a truck onto a New York bike path and killing eight people.
Saipov legally emigrated from Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic and predominantly Sunni Muslim nation north of Afghanistan that is estimated to have produced hundreds if not thousands of supporters for the Islamic State group and other extremist organizations in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Notes found at the crime scene indicate Saipov acted in the name of IS, authorities said.
After arriving in the U.S. in 2010, Saipov made his first home in Ohio, acquaintances said.
Another Uzbek immigrant, Mirrakhmat Muminov, came to know Saipov and said he was most struck by how provocative he was.
Sometimes, he would stir quarrels over politics or the Mideast peace process, Muminov said, but he could also grow angry over something as simple as a picnic.
“He had the habit of disagreeing with everybody,” said Muminov, a 38-yearold from Stow, Ohio, who works as a truck driver, just as Saipov once did.
Muminov described Saipov as “aggressive” and suspected he held radical views.
A marriage license filed in Summit County, Ohio, shows Saipov married a woman named Nozima Odilova on April 12, 2013. But the couple eventually left Ohio for Florida. Saipov had a driver’s license from that state, and some records showed an address for him at a Tampa apartment complex.
Records show he worked as a commercial truck driver and formed a pair of trucking businesses that could have kept him on the road for long stretches.
Saipov and his family moved from Florida to New Jersey in June, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
After plowing through the bike path and into a school bus, authorities said, he emerged from the vehicle, brandishing air guns and yelling “God is great!” in Arabic. He was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he was recovering from being shot by a police officer who stopped the attack.
Saipov later appeared in court in a wheelchair. He didn’t enter a plea or seek bail.
As he lay in bed at the hospital, authorities said, he asked about displaying a flag for the Islamic State group in his room. He said, according to court documents, that he felt good about what he had done.