This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen
on .
It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
Boston police: video shows man lunged with knife before officers shot him
Boston police 'backed away' from terror suspect before shooting him dead
(about 2 hours later)
Boston police said they have video showing a man who was under 24-hour surveillance by terrorism investigators lunging with a knife at a police officer and an FBI agent, before he was shot and killed– an account his brother has disputed.
The Boston police commissioner said on Wednesday that video footage of the killing a day earlier of a terrorism surveillance target showed that law enforcement officers “back-stepped away” from the suspect, who advanced on them before they shot him dead.
A law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation said Usaama Rahim had been making threats against law enforcement. The official was not authorized to release details of the investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Commissioner William Evans appeared with community and religious leaders at a news conference following a screening of the video for the group. The video was not released to the public. Evans said the screening was held in order to rebut claims that the victim had been shot in the back while waiting for a bus.
Police commissioner William Evans said members of the joint terrorism taskforce approached Rahim in the city’s Roslindale neighborhood Tuesday morning, to question him about “terrorist-related information” they had received when he went at officers with a large military-style knife.
Both Evans and Abdullah Faaruuk, spokesperson for the Islamic society of Boston, said the video showed “four or five” officers approaching the victim, identified by family as Usaama Rahim, and then quickly retreating from him as he moved toward them.
Evans said officers repeatedly ordered Rahim to drop the knife but he continued to move toward them with it. He said taskforce members fired their guns, hitting Rahim once in the torso and once in the abdomen. Rahim, 26, was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Police have said that Rahim threatened officers with a “military knife”, and a knife was recovered at the scene. However, no knife or guns are visible in the video, which was shot at a distance, officials said.
Late Tuesday, the FBI arrested a man in connection with the case. Christina DiIorio-Sterling, a spokeswoman for US attorney Carmen Ortiz, said David Wright was taken into custody at his home in suburban Everett. She said Wright will face federal charges and is expected to appear in US district court on Wednesday.
“The video is inconclusive,” Faaruuk said. “We couldn’t see clearly whether there was a knife or not. We can’t be clear as to what transpired.
DiIorio-Sterling wouldn’t specify the charges, but confirmed they’re related to the Rahim investigation.
“It wasn’t at a bus stop,” Faaruuk continued. “He wasn’t shot in the back … He was approaching them, they did back up. Apparently, by evidence of his death, he was fired on.”
Authorities also searched a home in Warwick, Rhode Island, but would not confirm that was linked to the Boston shooting.
Darnell Williams, CEO of the Urban League of eastern Massachusetts, also appeared at the news conference. “I think the video is clear but it’s distant,” Williams said. “You cannot recognize who’s in the video per se. You just see the silhouettes of the individuals doing what they’re doing.”
Evans said authorities had been watching Rahim “for quite a time”, but “a level of alarm” prompted them to try to question him Tuesday.
Police said the video would not be released to the public until an investigation by the district attorney, who is weighing whether the killing was justified as defined by the state, was completed.
He said authorities knew Rahim “had some extremism as far as his views”, but he would not confirm media reports that Rahim had been radicalized by online propaganda by the Islamic State group.
Evans said that law enforcement officers working with a joint terrorism taskforce had determined that “the threat was severe enough that we had to approach [Rahim]”, without giving further details.
Evans said the officers didn’t have their guns drawn when they approached Rahim. He said the video shows Rahim “coming at officers” while they were backing away.
“This guy required 24/7 surveillance,” Evans said. “The level of our concern rose to the level that we needed to question him. I think we never anticipated what his reaction would be.”
That description differs from one given by Rahim’s brother Ibrahim Rahim, who said in a Facebook posting that his youngest brother was killed while waiting at a bus stop to go to his job.
Both Evans and Faaruuk encouraged calm. “The [other] thing we want to do is to be quiet until we can see how this thing unfolds,” Faaruuk said.
“He was confronted by three Boston Police officers and subsequently shot in the back three times,” he wrote. “He was on his cellphone with my dear father during the confrontation needing a witness.”
Ibrahim Rahim, a former assistant imam at a Boston mosque, could not immediately be reached for more comment Tuesday. In an email, he said he was traveling to Boston to bury his brother.
The Suffolk district attorney’s office and the FBI said they will investigate Rahim’s shooting, a routine procedure for shootings involving police.
The Council of American-Islamic Relations will monitor the investigation, spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said.
“We have a number of questions,” Hooper said. “Why exactly was he being followed? What was the probable cause for this particular stop? Were there any video cameras or body cameras of the incident? How do you reconcile the two versions of the story, the family version being that he was on his normal commute to work at a bus stop?”
Boston voter registration records for Usaama Rahim list him as a student. Records indicate that as recently as two years ago he was licensed as a security officer in Miami but don’t specify in what capacity.
Yusufi Vali, executive director of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, said the center’s security firm hired Rahim as a security guard for a month in mid-2013. Vali said Rahim did not regularly pray at the center and did not volunteer there or serve in any leadership positions.
Vincent Lisi, special agent in charge of the Boston FBI office, said authorities “don’t think there’s any concern for public safety out there right now”.
