The man accused of stabbing a Muslim NYC cab driver hardly has the background one might expect from someone charged with a hate crime committed in a drunken rage.

Michael Enright is a film student at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan and has been working with the Intersection International, a multifaith and multicultural effort which seeks to promote justice and peace. The project's website is strongly supportive of the Cordoba House project in lower Manhattan and videos of its leader, Imam Faisel Rauf, are posted on their website.

The 21-year-old aspiring filmmaker had been to Afghanistan recently, working on a documentary on a Marine unit his high school buddy served with. His earlier efforts to embed with his friend were the subject of a profile in the local paper.

The documentary he was working on was "completely nonpolitical," Enright told the newspaper. "It's just showing the young people who are spearheading our foreign policy. They're doing what I don't have to do."

Here's a trailer for "Home of The Brave," the movie Enright was working on:

Enright told police he had been working with an Internet media company and had recently spent time with a combat unit in Afghanistan filming military exercises according to The New York Post.

A former high school classmate of Enright's, speaking to TPMMuckraker on background, expressed shock about the crime and spent the morning eliminating electronic footprints that connected the two. "It's just disgusting, sad, horrific," he said, adding that, like the group Enright was working with, he supports the Cordoba Project.

Here's a video Enright made for Intersection International:

Republished with permission from TalkingPointsMemo.com. Authored by Ryan J. Reilly. Additional reporting by Rachel Slajda, Megan Carpentier and Eric Lac. Photo via Flickr. TPM provides breaking news, investigating reporting and smart analysis of politics.