Jitney bus battle: Driver smashed commuter van with fire extinguisher, police say

A Brooklyn man is accused of attacking a man with a fire extinguisher in Weehawken.

Patrick McGovern
The Jersey Journal
August 1, 2014

A Brooklyn man is accused of attacking a man's Jitney van with a fire extinguisher in an a dispute between jitney bus drivers in Weehawken, police said.

Ashraf Awad, 49, of Brooklyn, is charged with making terroristic threats, criminal mischief, possession of a weapon for unlawful purposes, and unlawful possession of a weapon after he smashed the side mirrors and the body of the victim's car.

Authorities say that Awad, a jitney bus driver, also threatened to kill the man, also a jitney bus driver, during the incident at 10 a.m. Wednesday, according to a criminal complaint and Weehawken police.

The dispute in an ongoing one between jitney bus drivers competing for riders along the busy roadway that runs through North Bergen, West New York and Weehawken, police.

In this incident, police say the dispute began at 74th Street and Park Avenue in West New York and came to a boil at 46th Street and Boulevard East, where Awad positioned his jitney bus in front of the other jitney bus, blocking the victim from leaving.

Awad then got out of the commuter van, fire extinguisher in hand, and began bashing the man?s jitney bus. Awad tried to smash the windows, but failed to do so, and then began breaking the side mirrors and denting the body of the commuter van, police said.

While he was hitting the man?s car with the fire extinguisher, Awad yelled "I?m going to kill you? and he made other threats, police said.

Out on $2,000 bail, Awad appeared in Central Judicial Processing Court in Jersey City Thursday. Judge Kelly Austin reminded Awad to avoid all contact with the alleged victim in the case as a condition of his bail.

Editor's note: This report has been updated to reflect new information from the Weehawken police.