A News 12 New Jersey employee says that he had a brush with the man accused in the New York City truck terrorist attack nearly a month before the incident.
Producer Matt Trapani says that when he learned that Sayfullo Saipov was an Uber driver, he looked at his own rider history to see if he had ever ridden with Saipov.
Trapani was surprised to see that he had in fact had Saipov as an Uber driver on Oct. 2 when he needed a ride from Newark Liberty International Airport.
“You don’t really ever know what someone is capable of,” Trapani says. “He was pretty quiet…he wasn’t very talkative.”
Saipov has a 4.76 out of 5 rating as an Uber driver. Some of his previous customers left him glowing reviews and said that he was very nice.
Saipov picked Trapani up in a Toyota Sienna, the same vehicle that was seen sealed off behind police tape at the Passaic Home Depot Tuesday night. Police say that Saipov rented the truck that he used in the attack from this Home Depot.
Authorities say that Saipov had been planning the attack for a while - a chilling thought for Trapani.
“[Our ride] was only a month ago. So he may have been thinking about it or planning it at that point,” Trapani says. “You just don’t wake up one day and say ‘I’m going to do this.’”
Authorities say that Uber has been cooperating with the investigation.