Read the text “What We Know About Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov,

Suspect In The Deadly NYC Attack (Part 2)

(1)People who knew Saipov ― albeit vaguely ― offered differing descriptions of him, with some calling him calm and one person characterizing him as “sometimes aggressive.” Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov is in police custody in New York City. Saipov was wanted on a April 2016 warrant for failure to pay a Missouri traffic citation. Saipov passed a background check to become an Uber driver in New Jersey, the ride-sharing company said in statement provided to HuffPost. He was an active driver at the time of the attack, having recorded over 1,400 trips in six months, but has since been banned from the app, Uber said. “We are aggressively and quickly reviewing this partner’s history with Uber, and at this time we have not identified any related concerning safety reports,” the company said, adding that it has been in contact with the FBI. Lyft also said Wednesday that Saipov had been registered as a driver on the ride-hailing app but did not specify when or for how long. Saipov had traffic citations in Missouri ― he was arrested after not showing up in court for a misdemeanor offense ― and Pennsylvania, according to online records. His driver’s license reportedly was issued in Florida.

 (2)An address from 2015 also linked Saipov’s name to Stow, Ohio, but he had reportedly been living in Paterson, New Jersey, for the past few months with his wife and two children. Carlos Batista, 23, one of the family’s neighbors in Paterson, first saw a Home Depot truck parked outside Saipov’s apartment building about three weeks ago, he told HuffPost. He said Saipov would get in the truck with the same two men almost every day, usually around 9 a.m., and return in the afternoon. All of the men had long beards, Batista said, but only Saipov wore a long robe. Batista said his interactions with Saipov were mostly limited to neighborly hellos and waves. Once, though, he said he got into a small altercation with the men who rode in the truck with Saipov. They men were upset with Batista for riding a noisy dirt bike up and down the street, Batista said. Batista said they gave him some attitude, so he gave some attitude back. That’s when Saipov stepped outside. “He was the peacemaker,” Batista said of Saipov. “He calmed everything down.” From what he could tell, Batista said, Saipov seemed like a “good guy.” An Uzbek immigrant who knew Saipov agreed. “He was a very good person when I knew him,” Kobiljon Matkarov told The New York Times. “He liked the U.S. He seemed very lucky and all the time he was happy and talking like everything is OK. He did not seem like a terrorist, but I did not know him from the inside.” Another acquaintance from Cincinnati, whose family housed Saipov for several weeks in 2010 as he tried to get his green card, described him as hard-working and introverted. “He was really calm,” Dilnoza Abdusamatova told The Cincinnati Enquirer. “He always used to work. He wouldn’t go to parties or anything. He only used to come home and rest and leave and go back to work.” He left after two weeks and moved to Florida, she added.

(3)However, public records from 2011 show a business, Sayf Motors Inc., registered under his name at Abdusamatova’s home address in Ohio. Saipov was “spontaneously religious,” Mirrakhmat Muminov, a truck driver and Uzbek community activist who lives in Stow, Ohio, told Reuters. “He started studying religion in the United States. He was withdrawn, nervous, sometimes aggressive,” Muminov said.

(4) Saipov drove down the bike path along the West Side Highway and hit multiple bikers and pedestrians, police say. He then drove the truck into a Stuyvesant High School bus before exiting the vehicle and waving what police described as “imitation firearms.” He was confronted by a New York City police officer, shot and then taken to a hospital. He remained in police custody at Bellevue Hospital as of Wednesday.

(5)“Hopefully people don’t go ‘round discriminating against Muslim people or Arabic people,” said Angel Batista, Carlos’ older brother. “This is a Muslim community. We have the mosque, a lot of schools for Muslims ... They’re not bad people. They’re nice genuine people willing give up what they have for other people.” Ahmad, a 46-year-old truck driver from Jersey City who asked to be identified only by his first name for security reasons, found the gate locked when he arrived to pray at Omar Mosque on Wednesday. The mosque is believed to be where Saipov worshipped, according to multiple media reports. Ahmad apologized for his English not being good enough to express how disgusted he was by Saipov’s actions. “In our religion,” he told HuffPost, “if you kill a cat, you go to hell. How [can you] you kill innocent people?” “I don’t know,” Ahmad added. “He is not a Muslim. If he is doing that he not a Muslim.” He added that “very, very few people” misunderstand Islam, saying that “they give the world a bad picture of Muslims.”

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sayfullo-habibullaevic-saipov-truck-driver-nyc-suspect_us_59f9261de4b0d1cf6e914feb?section=us_crime

Vocabulary notes

Task 2

Read the text again and find equivalents of the following Russian word combinations and sentences; note the use of the grammatical forms in brackets:

Task 3

Discuss the following questions:

Task 4

Fill in the gaps with prepositions:

UNIT 4

Baby-Murder

Task 1

Read the text “Amelia Crichton baby murder: ‘Self-centred’ mother jailed”

(1) A “self-centred, manipulative” mother who murdered her seven-month-old baby has been jailed for more than 21 years. Jennifer Crichton attacked Amelia at home in Leyland, Lancashire, two days before the baby’s death in April 2017. Sentencing her, Mr Justice Holgate said he was sure Crichton had forced either Amelia “down to the ground or she struck her head on to a hard surface”. The 35-year-old was jailed for life at Liverpool Crown Court and ordered to serve a minimum of 21 years six months.

(2) She was found guilty of murder, as well as three counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and one of child cruelty against another child, at a trial in February. The court heard that a social worker had visited Crichton before the attack on 19 April 2017. During the visit, she had refused to take over feeding Amelia and instead went for a cigarette. An hour and 20 minutes after the worker left, Crichton called 999 and told the call handler her daughter had stopped breathing. Amelia was rushed to Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, where she died two days later after doctors concluded she would not recover from her “catastrophic” injuries. A post-mortem examination revealed she had died as a result of head injuries.

(3) Offering mitigation, Simon Jackson QC said Crichton was a “vulnerable woman unable to cope, ultimately, with the pressures of motherhood”. Delivering the sentence, Mr Justice Holgate said Amelia’s death had a “devastating effect” on the rest of her family. “Their pain over losing a much-loved young child and her life being so cruelly cut short will endure,” he said. The judge described Crichton as “self-centred, deceitful, manipulative and lacking in any real remorse”. Speaking after sentencing, senior crown prosecutor Brett Gerrity said although Crichton pleaded guilty to manslaughter during her trial, that was not accepted as “we were satisfied that the injuries which led to her death were deliberatelyinflicted”. He added that Crichton had “shown no remorse” and had “refused to explain… how Amelia was fatally injured”.