Incident Involving Shohel Mahmud and Jennifer Guilbeault

Shohel Mahmud, a rideshare driver, had no apparent reason for concern when he accepted a request from two young women for an Uber ride around midnight on July 31. As the women entered his vehicle on the West Side of Manhattan, Mr. Mahmud confirmed that one of them, Jennifer Guilbeault, was indeed the passenger who had ordered the ride. He then navigated toward their chosen destinations on the East Side.

The initial leg of the journey was uneventful. Mr. Mahmud described a calm atmosphere as the car made its way uptown and across Central Park. The women engaged in conversation, often focused on their phones, while Mr. Mahmud chose to remain silent, feeling it unnecessary to interrupt their relaxed exchange. “They were talking and chilling,” he recounted on Monday. “Why would I interrupt?”

However, the situation took a dramatic turn when Mr. Mahmud came to a stop at a traffic light at 65th Street and Lexington Avenue. As he paused, he began to pray quietly in Arabic, a personal practice that suddenly provoked an unexpected reaction from Ms. Guilbeault. Without warning, she lunged at him, seized him, and sprayed his face with pepper spray.

In the moments that followed, as Ms. Guilbeault stood outside the vehicle, her companion questioned her impulsive action. “Why did you do that?” her friend asked. Ms. Guilbeault’s chilling response was, “He’s brown,” a statement that was later cited in a police officer’s report based on surveillance footage from the scene.

On Monday, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg announced that Ms. Guilbeault, 23, had been indicted on multiple charges, which included second- and third-degree assault classified as a hate crime, highlighting the severity of the incident and the motivations behind it.