Knife attack on Sikh trucker in Wyoming stirs fresh fears in community

The stabbing of a Sikh truck driver at a Wyoming rest area has the U.S. Sikh community newly on edge

FORT COLLINS, Colo. -- The stabbing of a truck driver at a remote Wyoming rest stop had U.S. Sikhs on edge Friday amid rising anti-immigrant vitriol against the community and its truck drivers in particular.

The Sikh victim was attacked from behind early Sunday while in a restroom at the Bitter Creek rest stop on Interstate 80 midway between Cheyenne and Salt Lake City, according to court documents. He suffered stabs to the neck and chest and over a dozen other cuts but survived.

While police say the motive is unknown, the attack came after deadly crashes involving Sikh truck drivers led to debate about commercial driver's licensing requirements — sparking hatred toward Sikhs as a group, community leaders said.

Anti-Sikh sentiment has been especially severe on truck-driving forums, said one Sikh in the trucking industry, Harsimran Singh, CEO of Gillson Trucking in Stockton, California.

"I’ve been here for the last 25-plus years," Singh said. "I never felt this kind of hate before.”

Police were still investigating what prompted the Wyoming attack by a man who left the rest area driving a truck-trailer combination, Sweetwater County Sheriff's Department spokesperson Jeff Sheaman said.

The victim allegedly told police he was trying to use the restroom when he was attacked from behind. He pushed the attacker, he said, and didn't see the knife at first, according to the police affidavit filed in the case.

Within hours, police arrested Andrew Kris Bzdak in nearby Carbon County, Wyoming. A family at the rest area who heard the attack allegedly followed Bzdak's truck back onto the highway and tipped off police to help find him, according to the affidavit.

Video taken from a truck at the rest area showed the victim walk casually into the restroom, followed by a man police said was Bzdak. Soon after, Bzdak allegedly was recorded running from the restroom, followed by the stumbling, wounded victim who fell at least once, according to the affidavit.

Bzdak remained jailed on $1 million bond Friday in Rock Springs, on suspicion of attempted murder, a crime punishable in Wyoming by up to life in prison. An initial appearance was scheduled for Thursday.

A phone message left at an address for Bzdak in Catawissa, Pennsylvania, wasn't immediately returned, nor was a phone message for him at the jail and for his Wyoming public defender, Gary Arnell.

Despite no evident motive, the attack was unnerving for Sikhs, who number around 750,000 in the U.S. Many live in California.

Sikh men wear beards, uncut hair and turbans, and many work as truck drivers. Advocacy groups estimate at least 150,000 Sikh truck drivers work in the U.S.