Ahmad Khan Rahami was arrested in 2014 on charges of stabbing a person in the leg and possession of a firearm.
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According to ABC News, the suspect and two police officers – although later reports said four officers – were wounded in the shootout and, after being placed in custody, Rahami was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital to have his wounds treated, although the extent of those injuries was not immediately clear.
But at a press conference at NYPD headquarters Monday afternoon, they revealed little else about the possible motives of the suspect, 28-year-old Ahman Khan Rahami, who was taken into custody after a shootout with police in Linden, New Jersey.
After an intensive manhunt that included police reaching out to millions of residents in the New York City metropolitan area, authorities on Monday captured the man they believe is responsible for an explosion in Manhattan this weekend that injured more than two dozen people.
The attack appeared linked to another explosion in Seaside Park, New Jersey, and a series of pipe bombs found in a backpack Sunday night in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
NY police believe that Rahami is the man shown in security camera videos on Manhattan’s West 23rd St., where on Saturday a bomb exploded, and on West 27th St. where shortly thereafter another unexploded bomb was found.
The pipe bomb exploded on Saturday in Seaside Park, New Jersey, before a charity 5K race to benefit Marines and sailors. No one was injured there.
The court complaints describe Rahami buying bomb-making equipment so openly between June and August that he ordered citric acid, ball bearings and electronic igniters on eBay and had them delivered to a Perth Amboy, New Jersey, business where he worked until earlier this month.
Cellphones were discovered at the site of both the NY and New Jersey bombings, but no Tannerite residue was identified in the New Jersey bomb remnants, in which a black powder was detected, said the official, who wasn’t authorized to comment on the investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity. The official, and other United States security sources, said Mr Rahami underwent additional security screening upon returning from overseas but passed on every occasion.
They were summoned by a neighbourhood bar owner, who found the bombing suspect sleeping against his closed tavern’s front door.
The man suspected of setting off bombs in NY and New Jersey used to work as an unarmed guard at private security companies, including one that provided services to The Associated Press.
The raid in Elizabeth came hours after an explosive device left near a train station there blew up when a bomb squad robot cut a wire on the mechanism. Federal prosecutors said they still were weighing charges over the bombings. At the same time, five people who were pulled over in a vehicle on Sunday night were being questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, officials said.
Also on Saturday, a man who authorities say referred to Allah wounded nine people in a stabbing rampage at a Minnesota mall before being shot to death by an off-duty police officer.
Rahami lived with his family above their fried-chicken restaurant in Elizabeth, and his relatives have clashed with the city over closing times and noise complaints they said were tinged with anti-Muslim sentiment.
As authorities tried to unravel who planted the device and why, one New Yorker, Anthony Stanhope, 40, knew exactly what had just happened.
As a police auto pulled up at the traffic light in front of the shop, the man fired about six shots at the cruiser, then continued down the street with police following him, Bilinskas said.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a national Muslim advocacy group, welcomed Rahami’s arrest.
“The more we learn with each passing hour is it looks more like terrorism”, de Blasio said in an interview on NY1 News.
The events put NY on edge and fuelled the debate about U.S. security seven weeks before the presidential election, with candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton clashing once again on Monday.
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“He’s a very friendly guy”, patron Ryan McCann said.
