The FBI is investigating last week’s shooting of a Philadelphia police officer as an act of terrorism, leading lawmakers to call for increased homeland security resources to aid in the prevention of domestic terror threats.
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FBI Director James Comey spoke briefly about the investigation Wednesday in Pittsburgh, reported The Associated Press.
Police said Yeadon resident Edward Archer, 30, told them he was acting “in the name of Islam” when he opened fire on Officer Jesse Hartnett’s marked cruiser January 7 at a Philadelphia intersection.
Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., this morning said he believed cop shooter Edward Archer had been “radicalized”, but he could not say how or if it was necessarily via contact with someone or his beliefs in the Islamic State. He also didn’t say how Archer became “radicalized”.
Comey visited Hartnett in his hospital room Thursday along with Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross.
Despite his injuries and significant blood loss, Hartnett fired back as he got out of his police auto and chased Archer, who was hit once in the buttocks.
Hartnett has undergone extensive surgeries to fix the damage to his arm, which was left “shattered” and has a long road of recovery ahead of him, the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police President John McNesby told NBC10.
Police say they are working with the FBI to investigate the credibility of the information. “I don’t know how this officer survived”. Philadelphia police remain on high alert in the wake of the attack and investigation.
“They are crowd-sourcing terrorism, using Twitter and other forms of social media to try to motivate anybody” to conduct an attack, he was quoted as saying. Authorities believe Archer traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2011 and to Egypt in 2012 and are investigating the objective of those trips.
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FBI investigators were seeking to find out if Archer was in touch with or inspired by anyone linked to Islamic State.
