📽️ WATCH - Man hurls shopping cart at DoorDasher

🔪 CRIME - Teenage hobo killers sentenced

🚗 TECH - Lyft passenger’s conversation recorded and sent to her

Good morning. And happy Friday.

This week’s issue is dominated by Toronto news. In our headline story, a man takes down a food-delivery biker with a shopping cart. You need to see it to believe it. Luckily, we have video evidence.

We’re also following up on a group of teenage girls who swarmed and stabbed a homeless man to death two years ago. They’re facing trial.

Lastly, be careful what you say in a Lyft.

-Peter

Today’s read is 4 ½ minutes long.

WATCH

TERMINATOR ATTACKS DOORDASHER

Last week, a Toronto man gave in to his intrusive thoughts and hurled a shopping cart at a DoorDashing motorcyclist.

I’ll be honest—I’m not sure if the biker actually works for DoorDash.

He could work for Uber Eats or SkipTheDishes.

But one thing is certain: he’ll think twice before driving his motorcycle in a bike lane again.

The above incident occurred last Tuesday around 10 AM near Danforth and Monarch Park Avenue.

The terminator in sunglasses is a 47-year-old man named Nektarios Manimanakis. Police arrested him shortly after the attack and charged him with mischief and two counts of assault.

The cyclist was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. One source says he begged the paramedics to discharge him early so that he could finish his delivery. He kept mumbling something about an “eight-dollar tip” and a “one-star review.”

It’s unclear why Nektarios had beef with the DoorDasher. Some experts say it’s part of a broader rise in hatred toward cyclists.

Seriously, where do they get off? People have always hated cyclists.

CRIME

JUSTICE FOR HOBO KILLERS 

One of the teenage girls who swarmed and killed a Toronto homeless man two years ago has been sentenced to nine months of probation.

The girl, who doesn’t have a name,* was tried earlier this week for her involvement in the murder of 59-year-old Kenneth Lee on December 18, 2022.

Lee and a lady friend of his were hanging out just after midnight in a downtown parkette when they ran into a gaggle of eight girls, aged 13 to 16.

The girls tried to steal a bottle of liquor from Lee’s friend. When Lee intervened to save the bottle her, the girls swarmed, stabbed, and beat him for three minutes before dispersing. Lee died later that night in a hospital.

Police arrested all eight girls that night and charged them with 2nd-degree murder. They’ve been in custody ever since, mostly under house arrest. By now, all but one have pleaded guilty to either manslaughter or assault.

The girls hadn’t met in person before the night of the attack. They all lived in different burbs of Toronto and communicated through social media to establish a meetup location.

One of the girls filmed the attack. She saw the others hitting, kicking and stomping Lee, so she threw a “small object” at him before whipping out her phone to record the rest.

Were these girls trying to get drunk or film a viral video? Probably both.

Regardless, Gen-Z continues to defy definition. Statisticians have been saying for years that the younger generations are rejecting booze en masse.

These girls literally killed for it.

*Of course she has a name, silly. It’s just protected under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. She was a minor when she committed the crime.

TECH

LYFT IS LISTENING

Don’t mutter any of your manifestos next time you’re in a Lyft.

Better yet, don’t say anything at all.

A Toronto woman’s entire conversation in a Lyft car with her friends was recorded, transcribed, and sent to her one night back in March.

Anvi Ahuja says she arrived home at her downtown apartment when she received a text message from a strange number containing a transcript of the 8-minute conversation she’d had just moments before.

She called the message and heard an automated message: “We can't connect your call because your driver is not available right now.”

So she phoned Lyft and was told by a customer service rep that the phone tapping was pretty standard stuff.

“That’s something new we're piloting,” he said, explaining that the company recorded audio from some rides and kept the transcript for reference just in case a security issue was reported.

Lyft later walked those comments back and said it never records passengers “without their express prior consent.”

The company blamed Ahuja’s driver for recording, transcribing, and texting her the conversation from a masked phone number. Lyft assured Ahuja that they took “proper actions" against him.

Poor guy.

Are you really surprised? What did you think you were getting when you downloaded knock-off Uber?

Lyft needs to harvest a little bit 🤏 of your data to keep their prices competitive.

Have a great weekend. 🍻 

-Peter