Brush with terror: Lakewood brothers’ ride with Sayfullo Saipov

If the idea of being close to a terrorist attack while walking through Manhattan is scary to you, then how frightening is the thought of being the passenger in a terrorist's car shortly before he commits a mass murder?

Well, that’s exactly what happened to brothers Eli and of Avrumi Grynhaus of Lakewood when they hopped Lyft ride from Newark Airport back to Lakewood a couple of weeks ago, according to the Lakewood Scoop.

When Eli saw in news reports a picture of Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, the suspect in the horrible truck melee in New York City yesterday that killed eight people and injured more than a dozen more, he thought the face looked familiar.

Looking back over the records of his Lyft rides he saw it: The alleged terrorist himself — the man who had casually driven him home to Lakewood on Oct. 19.

The Grynhauses provided what appears to be a screenshot of a Lyft receipt, and Lyft has confirmed to New Jersey 101.5 that Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov was a driver on its system until being identified as a suspect in the New York attacks. As has been widely reported, he also drove for Uber.

Now that stories have surfaced that Saipov may have been planning the attack for a few weeks, it’s chilling to think that the entire hour or so ride, the impending mass murder was probably on the driver's mind.

According to several reports he had a pretty decent record as a rideshare driver. Grynhaus acknowledged, “The scary thing is, this could have happened right here in Lakewood." Yes, Eli. Yes, indeed it could have. It could have happened anywhere.

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Dennis & Judi are on the air weekdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tweet them @DennisandJudi or @NJ1015.