It wasn’t immediately known if the blast was part of a controlled explosion.
Advertisement
This undated photo provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation shows Ahmad Khan Rahami, wanted for questioning in the bombings that rocked a New York City neighborhood and a New Jersey shore town was taken into custody Monday, Sept. 19, 2016, after a shootout with police in New Jersey, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.
Authorities have identified a suspect in the Manhattan explosion case as a 28-year-old New Jersey resident of Afghan descent who may be armed and unsafe, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Monday.
Hours later, a police officer in Linden, New Jersey, recognized Rahami after finding him sleeping in a doorway, prompting a confrontation and shootout that led to his capture.
“Lotta’ lotta’ gunfire”, Derek Pelligra, manager of Linden Auto Body, told the New York Times. “We need to get this guy right away”.
Relatives of a man in custody after explosives were found in NY and New Jersey filed a federal lawsuit in 2011, claiming they and their family business were targeted because they are Muslims.
The father contacted the FBI after Ahmad Khan Rahami was charged with stabbing his brother, according to the official, who was not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. It wasn’t clear when Rahami would get an attorney.
But authorities have not drawn any connection between the bloodshed there and the bombings.
A third incident in Minnesota, where a man stabbed nine people before being shot, is being investigated separately as a “potential act of terrorism”, Obama said.
Around the time Rahami was taken into custody, President Barack Obama was in NY on a previously scheduled visit for a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly, and said it was “extremely fortunate” nobody was killed in the bombings.
Rahami wasn’t on any terror or no-fly watch lists, though he had been interviewed for immigration purposes traveling between the US and Afghanistan, one of the law enforcement officials said.
The apartment is above a First American Fried Chicken restaurant where law enforcement say a man and his sons live.
The lawsuit was terminated in 2012 after Mohammad Ruhami pleaded guilty to blocking police from enforcing the restrictions on the restaurant.
A childhood friend, Flee Jones, said Rahami had become more religious after returning from a trip to Afghanistan several years ago.
Rahami lived with his family on a busy street a few miles from the Newark airport. “That’s what’s so scary”.
The pipe bomb that exploded in Seaside Park on Saturday went off before a charity 5K race to benefit Marines and sailors. No one was injured.
The discovery of the suspicious package comes a day after an explosion in Manhattan injured 29 people, and an unexploded pressure-cooker device was found four blocks away. There was luck involved; thieves apparently took the pressure cooker out of a piece of luggage and somehow disabled it. Police were able to use the cellphone recovered with the homemade bomb to track the suspect.
Then on Sunday night, five explosive devices were discovered in a trash can at an Elizabeth train station.
Investigators are still gathering evidence and have not publicly tied Rahami to those devices, though Sweeney noted they aren’t “ruling anything out”. Authorities say the New York City bomb contained residue of an explosive often used for target practice that can be picked up in many sporting goods stores. PANYNJ owns and operates the Port Authority Trans-Hudson commuter-rail line between New Jersey and Midtown Manhattan.
As for how investigators zeroed in on him as a suspect, three law enforcement officials said the clues included a fingerprint lifted from one of the NY sites and “clear as day” surveillance video from the bombing scene that helped identify Rahami. The fire department said 29 people were hurt by the blast, but none of the injuries were life-threatening and all those hurt people were released from area hospitals by Sunday morning.
His last known address was in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where the Federal Bureau of Investigation executed a search warrant on Monday morning.
One law enforcement officer was shot in the hand while a second officer was saved by a bulletproof vest in the shootout, authorities confirmed.
Advertisement
The blast happened on West 23rd Street, in front of a residence for the blind, near a major thoroughfare with many restaurants and a Trader Joe’s supermarket.
