A law-enforcement official with knowledge of the case said Mr. Enright, who hails from Brewster, N.Y., repeatedly told arresting officers: "I'm a patriot."
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the assailant had an empty bottle of Scotch and four notebooks in his bag recovered by police at the scene of the slashing near East 42nd Street. A preliminary review of one notebook showed that Mr. Enright wrote about time he spent as a videographer in Afghanistan where he spent several weeks embedded with Marines, Mr. Kelly said.
Investigators will study the journals "in depth" once a search warrant is obtained, he said.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704913704575454111068853480.htmlWASHINGTON — The U.S. military says there was no sign the suspect in the slashing of a New York cab driver might not be able to cope with the experience of living with troops fighting in Afghanistan.
Michael Enright, a freelance journalist from Brewster, N.Y., was embedded with a Marine unit in southern Afghanistan. He is accused of slashing the face and neck of an immigrant cab driver this week in Manhattan after asking if he was Muslim.
Pentagon spokesman Col. Dave Lapan said Friday that Enright was with Marines for several weeks in the spring.
Army Col. Hans Bush, a military spokesman in Kabul, declined to say what missions Enright witnessed, but said there was nothing in Enright's application that indicated the 21-year-old was not up to facing exposure to military operations. Authorities say that before attacking, Enright told the cab driver, "Consider this a checkpoint."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hZ94D2RHFlg23xWjFKCH2z9ZKKHQD9HS2GB00NEW YORK — A college student accused of slashing a taxi driver because he is a Muslim was moved from jail to a psychiatric ward, corrections officials said Friday.
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Investigators obtained a warrant to search Enright's six journals, but did not find any anti-Muslim statements. Kelly described the journals as a chronicle of his time in Afghanistan. Enright traveled there in April on a trip he took as part of a senior video project he was doing at the School of Visual Arts. As part of the work, Enright spent time embedded with U.S. troops.
The handwriting was difficult to decipher, and Kelly said officials have not done an in-depth analysis of the journals, but the cursory look did not reveal a motive or a deep-rooted racism.
The journals do, however, detail Enright's drinking, and there was some indication that he had been in Alcoholics Anonymous, Kelly said. But it hasn't yet been determined if he has a serious drinking problem. Police said he was drunk at the time of the attack.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i5OdR6FH4zsmEVanHGR0y-jbOzngD9HRVHH80
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