The desperate search for a 28-year-old man wanted in connection with a series of blasts that terrorized NY and New Jersey over the last three days ended Monday in a gun battle with police officers.
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The Wireless Emergency Alert System allowed NY authorities to distribute a description of Ahmad Khan Rahami, the suspected bomber.
He is also accused of planting a bomb that detonated in Seaside, New Jersey, shortly after a fun run for Marines.
29 people were injured by the blast in Manhattan on Saturday, while an unexploded bomb was found close by.
The 28-year-old was transporting a powerful pressure cooker bomb which was filled with ball bearings but failed to explode, United States investigators believe.
One of five devices left inside a bag discovered in a trashcan at the local train station blew up Sunday evening as a bomb squad tried to disarm it.
Harinder Bains saw Rahami sleeping in the doorway of his bar in New Jersey around 9 am on Monday, a hoodie pulled over his head.
Speaking to the NBC through the window of his vehicle, Ahmad Khan Rahami appeared to be fighting back tears as he responded to questions from a reporter. Video shows Rahami laying on a stretcher, marking the end of a two-day manhunt. His friend, mail carrier Robert Varady, described the scene.
“She calls the patriotic Americans who support our campaign, many of whom are cops and soldiers, “deplorable” and “irredeemable” and she means it”, he said during a rally in Fort Myers, Fla. “I said, ‘Oh, where have you been?’ And he said, ‘Oh, vacation.’ But I knew he went to Afghanistan because his little brother said it”. The bullet was stopped by Padilla’s bulletproof vest. In a span of seconds, Rahami grabbed what police say was an automatic handgun and struck one officer with a shot.
Each time Rahami was taken to secondary screening, he satisfied whatever concerns immigration officials had. “I walk right by here and there’s a pot on the street with wires sticking out of it”, said Chelsea resident Jane Schreibman. There were no timers or cellphones found with the bombs, Bollwage said, prompting investigators to believe they had been discarded quickly. A cellphone attached to the undetonated pressure cooker was traced to Rahami’s father in Elizabeth, New Jersey. “He was so friendly he’d give us free chicken here and there, just because we shopped there so much”. Bay Area Congressman Eric Swalwell, D-Pleasant, who’s on the House Intelligence Committee, says the bombs are a familiar design.
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A notebook found on NY and New Jersey bombings suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami contained ramblings about terrorists and also mentioned Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni-American imam who was a spokesman for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, according to a law enforcement official.
