Second Brother Dies for Dream

When Sukhpal Singh Sodhi left his native India eight years ago for a job driving a cab here, his brother, who had done the same, warned him there was a trade-off. Yes, the money was good. But there also was danger in cruising the streets alone at night.

Now, both brothers are dead--one the victim of an Arizona hate crime after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the other felled early Sunday here by what police believe was a random bullet.

The killings, nearly one year apart, have rocked an extended family of Indian immigrants who insisted that America was the best place for them, even when their relatives sensed danger and pleaded with them to return home.

The family’s painful saga began last year when gas station owner Balbir Singh Sodhi became the first to die in a series of nationwide attacks on Arab-looking people. The 49-year-old, who wore a traditional Sikh turban, was shot as he checked new landscaping outside his business in suburban Phoenix.

The killing of his 50-year-old brother, Sukhpal, last weekend has once more tested the family’s strength and its commitment to the United States.

“That’s the only question I have: ‘Why our family?’ I asked God that question, but God never answered me,” said Lakhwinder Singh Sodhi, one of three surviving brothers who, after years of struggle and saving, have built several successful businesses in Phoenix. “Who could answer that question? Nobody.

“Everybody knows that it’s dangerous driving a cab. But when your time comes, it comes,” he added. “We thought Balbir was safe [in Phoenix], but he wasn’t safe. He was killed standing on a street corner. Death will come to you anywhere.”

In this case, death came to his brother, Sukhpal, just before 4 a.m. Sunday. It was just minutes before the end of another 12-hour shift in his cab.

Police say Sodhi was shot while driving in the city’s Mission District, in a gritty neighborhood where gangs and drugs are common. His cab hit two parked cars and a power pole before coming to a stop. Police are investigating reports of shots being fired in the area about that time.

Friends and fellow cabbies said Sodhi, a quiet, lumbering man who weighed more than 240 pounds, was not wearing his turban when he was shot.

But Lakhwinder Sodhi fears his brother, who was found with $322 in his pocket, may have been killed for the same reason Balbir was gunned down last year: hate.

“It’s not over,” he said. “I’m still facing the same thing in my gas station. It happened to me again two weeks ago.”

Four teenagers entered Sodhi’s Phoenix convenience store, bought some items, and then shouted at him: “Bin Laden, go back to your country!”

Stunned but not surprised, Sodhi handed them a brochure that explained the Sikh religion.

“They said, ‘I’m sorry. We didn’t understand.’ ”

In San Francisco, veteran cab drivers say they doubt Sukhpal Sodhi was murdered in a hate crime. They think he was shot because he was working a dangerous area at the most perilous time of night.

The neighborhood at 24th and Mission streets where Sodhi was shot is near “Heroin Alley,” a drug marketplace where murders are common.

“At that time of night, I wouldn’t go there for any reason, not even inside a police car,” said Ted Thrani, a manager at United Cab, where Sodhi worked. “This is not a hate crime. This is just a rough neighborhood.”

Richard Hybells, general manager at National Cab, on whose dispatcher Sodhi often relied for calls, cried Tuesday when talking about the killing. Balbir Sodhi once drove a cab for him.

“He gave me a watch one Christmas,” he said. “Those Indian guys are the salt of the Earth. The cab business couldn’t run without them.”

Even before Sept. 11, many Indian and Pakistani drivers reported being harassed, Hybells said.

“They get the finger, mostly from morons so unsophisticated they don’t know an Arab from an Indian. They see a turban and think terrorist,” he said.

Cab driver Hamby Bushar, 29, an Egyptian native who has driven a San Francisco taxi for less than six weeks, already knows the cold stare of a stranger. He watches as many passengers look at his identification photo and strain to read his name, as though doing the calculations of his ethnicity.

“Sometimes I’m almost afraid to speak because my accent is a giveaway,” he said. “Americans are still angry after the terrorist attacks. Who knows who might contemplate some act of revenge against anyone who even looks like a foreigner? Even a cabdriver.”

Sukhpal Sodhi, who left a wife and three adult children in India, understood the risks and planned to get out from behind the wheel.

“He called me after Balbir’s death every night. He said, ‘Sometimes I am afraid,’ ” Lakhwinder said.

The brothers last chatted about six hours before Sunday’s shooting. Sukhpal talked about wanting to arrange marriages for his two daughters--the traditional way. They talked about their business plans.

Last year, Sukhpal gave Lakhwinder $20,000--his life savings, money he earned by piling one 12-hour day on top of another. The brothers planned to invest in another gas station. In six months, Sukhpal would move out of the Daly City apartment he shared with two men and go to Arizona to be with family.

After Balbir’s murder last year, his parents came to the United States to attend a memorial service that attracted more than 4,000 mourners.

Lakhwinder Sodhi said the mother and father pleaded with the brothers to move back to India.

“They pushed me a lot. They said, ‘You are not safe here,’ ” he said. “We told them that this is the best country. We have businesses. Our kids go to school here. We have bonded with this country.”

This time, his parents won’t be coming.

“Two sons they lost in America,” Sodhi said. “I haven’t spoken to them. But I know they will say, ‘We told you to come back.’ I don’t know how I will answer them.”