Noureddine Bitat went from the end of a 13-hour shift behind the wheel of a yellow cab to being dragged onto the street by a mob in the wake of Wednesday night’s win by the Knicks — then watched helplessly as the taxi was trashed.
The 59-year-old Algerian cabbie became a target of the wild scenes that unfolded on the blocks north of Madison Square Garden and between Fifth and Eighth avenues after Game Four of the NBA Finals. That’s when rowdy revelers swarmed the leased 2026 Toyota Sienna as it headed east at 36th Street and Seventh Avenue, shattering its windshield and meter and stomping on its roof and hood.
Cabbie Noureddine Bitat was heading home to Queens when he was pulled out of a taxi and assaulted while stopped near Madison Square Garden after the Knicks comeback win in the NBA finals. Credit: Courtesy of Noureddine Bitat
“I’m here only to make a living,” Bitat told The City Reporter through a translator Friday. “It’s not nice for the fans, in their disappointed spirit, to act like they’re in the jungle and be dangerous for the population.”
Occasionally breaking into tears, he struggled to recount in Arabic the mayhem that broke out as fans exited The Garden and merged with crowds in the streets.
Bitat had been on his way home to Queens after ferrying a passenger he had picked up at LaGuardia Airport to Lower Manhattan.
But he never made it past 36th and 7th, where police stopped vehicles as crowds gathered.
“Too much, too much people,” he said. “They opened the doors, even the trunk, then forced me to come out from the car when one guy grabbed me by the neck.”
Bitat, who suffers from diabetes, spent part of Thursday being checked out at a Queens hospital after fainting while leaving his home. A cabbie for just over two years, he said he now is not sure if he will drive again.
“I’m thinking of quitting,” he said. “Once I saw the cab, it was very traumatic.”
Cabbie Noureddine Bitat recounts being dragged from a taxi and assaulted near Madison Square Garden by a crowd following the Knicks come from behind win in the NBA finals, June 12, 2026. Credit: Alex Krales/The City Reporter
The encounter showcased an ugly side of the Knicks’ 29-point comeback win over the San Antonio Spurs, with the NYPD taking 56 people into custody, making 14 arrests and blasting the “incredibly reckless and dangerous behavior” that included people jumping onto moving vehicles, breaking into a tractor-tractor and flinging its contents at police, climbing atop traffic lights and trying to overturn Bitat’s taxi.
“I worried they were going to set fire to the car, they tried to tip it over,” he said. “That’s when the cops came.”
During the chaos, in which he was punched in the head, Bitat said he stood off to the side as he worried about being penalized by the garage that had leased him the Sienna, a new wheelchair-accessible model. He shot video of the damage with his phone.
“They were yelling, ‘Knicks five! Knicks five! Knicks five!” he said.
The head of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance credited Bitat for what she called his “very impressive presence of mind” in reacting to the attack.
“In that mob scene, it could have really escalated if he did not keep his cool,” Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. “He kept himself alive and safe, which I don’t think everybody can do.”
Midori Valdivia, commissioner and chair of the Taxi & Limousine Commission, said she is incredibly grateful that Bitat was not seriously injured.
“There’s no excuse for the kind of behavior he was subjected to, and anyone with information related to those who committed this incident should reach out to the NYPD immediately,” Valdivia said. “Our TLC drivers are some of the best ambassadors of New York City and should be respected as such.”
Bitat said he does not plan to rejoin the ranks of the city’s 13,547 licensed yellow taxi drivers anytime soon. So he will miss out on the chance to ferry passengers during the World Cup, when more than 1 million visitors are expected to come to New York City for the monthlong tournament that is holding eight games just across the Hudson River in the New Jersey Meadowlands.
Desai said the taxi workers association will guide Bitat in filing for workers’ compensation funds that can help him with medical bills. NYTWA also intends to set up an online fundraiser for him.
“That’s so he gets full medical service, including therapy for the trauma and see about other work,” she said.
A video posted to social media by the news agency FreedomNews.TV shows about a dozen people on top of the taxi Bitat was driving, with one man smacking the cab’s busted windshield with a belt while another holds a Palestinian flag.
The taxi workers association wrote in a social media post that it believes “in justice and liberation for all.”
“This incident has nothing to do with the flag that was waved,” NYTWA posted to X.
The violence dampened the good feelings that have accompanied the Knicks run, with the team clinching its first NBA championship in more than 50 years on Saturday night.
“All New Yorkers felt like they were part of this one moment and just to see that come crashing down on us is really painful,” Desai said. “The yellow of the cab should not make you a target for this kind of group violence.”
Bitat said he knows next to nothing about basketball, identifying himself instead as a “soccer man.” But he said was aware of the significance of the Knicks’ win.
“We’re all happy that the Knicks made it and that they won their third game,” he said. “But don’t change it to a riot and destroying the public’s things.”
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