Boston terrorist shot three times after allegedly attacking police

Muslim community confirms police report via video recordings

A Boston man who is suspected to have been radicalized by the Islamic State has been shot and killed after attacking law enforcement officers with a knife yesterday.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Usaama Rahim, a 26-year-old Boston man, had been under 24-hour surveillance by the FBI, for suspicions that he was being radicalized.

That same day, a second man was arrested, who the U.S. Attorney's Office identified as David Wright, also under suspicion of having been radicalized.

FBI Special Agen Vincent Lisi said that "right now, we don't think there is any concern for public safety," in the Boston area.

Boston Police Commissioner Williams Evans said that police moved in on Rahim because he was believed to be "a threat".

"He was someone we were watching for quite some time."

Rahim's brother, Ibrahim Rahim, an imam at the Lighthouse Mosque in Oakland, California, posted about his brother's death on social media, though his claim that his brother was shot three times in the back while at a bus stop, talking to their father on the phone does not match up with law enforcement accounts that Rahim turned on police with a knife.

Surveillance footage of the shooting was taken by police, and the Islamic Society of Boston reported that Muslim leaders have been invited to see the recording.

The FBI headed anti-terrorism investigation had been watching Rahim and two other men in the Boston area who were believed to have been radicalized by the Islamic State; Rahim has been observed for a couple of years previous.

FBI agents noted behavioral changes, including posts on social media that threatened police officers, which is what prompted agents to approach him before the shooting.

Agents and police officers confronted Rahim at seven in the morning, before he suddenly turned around with a large knife and lunged at officers, who at this point did not have weapons drawn. Rahim was ordered to put his weapon down, but did not, which prompted officers to open fire.

"Unfortunately, he came at the officers," Evans said. And "they do what they were trained to do and, unfortunately, they had to take a life."

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