Turkish Lyft Driver and Young Turks Fan Stabs Passenger in San Diego
Laura Loomer
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A Turkish Lyft driver was arrested after he stabbed one of his passengers in San Diego.
Police say Ali Kendirli, 33, the Lyft driver who is originally from Izmir, Turkey stabbed a male passenger after getting in an argument with the passengers one male, two female, who didn’t know where their drop off destination was located. San Diego police officers received a call around 1:20 a.m. from the passengers on June 30 in the 6100 block of Caminito Del Oeste.
After stabbing the passenger, Kendrili drove away and only later returned to the scene when officers contacted him. He was arrested on site and taken to San Diego Central jail on a bail of $30,000.
“We have permanently deactivated the driver,” the transportation service said. “Our thoughts are with the passenger, who we have reached out to offer our full support and assistance. We stand ready to assist law enforcement with an investigation,” said Lyft in a statement about the stabbing.
A quick over view of Kendrili’s social media pages review that he follows several Islamic personalities, Turkish news, Muslim journalists, and is a fan of “The Young Turks”, a radical left wing show that was created by political activist and commentator Cenk Uygur, who was raised Muslim and is known for his shameless defense of Islamists and other left wing political radicals.
Following an Islamic terrorist attack at an airport in Istanbul, Turkey, Uygur used the Islamic terror attack to defend Islam, saying, “Don’t blame all Muslims, Muslims are the victims.” Throughout the years, Uygur has received a lot of backlash and criticism over his constant defense of Islam and harsh critique of Christianity and Judaism, despite the fact that he claims he himself is an “atheist”.
After posting bail, Kendrili shared his side of the story, telling Ch. 10 ABC in San Diego that he stabbed the passenger out of self-defense, accusing one of the three passengers of becoming violent first.
Channel 10 seemed to be defending the driver in their article, adding, “The first two addresses were wrong and in the ride-share business…time is money.” However, this is not true. While rideshare apps like Uber and Lyft used to charge passengers based on the time they spent in the car with drivers, Lyft and Uber now pre-calculate the price of rides before a passenger confirms their ride. Lyft and Uber informs users of the estimated cost of their rides beforehand, even giving them cheaper options in the form of “pool” rides that are sometimes shared with other customers.
The San Diego District Attorney’s office declined to file charges against the Lyft driver.
An earlier version of this article described Ali as Islamic, per Ali’s request we have changed Islamic to Turkish.
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