Police in Boston shot and killed Usaamah Rahim who was suspected of plotting to kill and behead Pamela Geller, a right-wing plotter that hosted a draw Muhammad contest last month in Texas.
Geller is the president of the ultra-conservative American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI). An organization that is viewed as a hate group by organizations such as the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Over the weekend, Usaamah apparently changed course and instead focused his intentions on decapitating police in Boston. As a result of a thorough investigation involving a wiretap by the FBI, local authorities with the FBI confronted Usaamah in front of a CVS in Boston. According to law enforcement officials, Usaamah then brandished a knife and lunged at the officers resulting in them shooting and killing Usaamah.
Usaamah’s brother, Imam Ibrahim Rahim from Lighthouse Mosque in Oakland, California had made a statement that the Boston police shot Usaamah in the back while he was speaking to his father on the phone.
In order to have transparency and ease tensions in the Boston community, the police in Boston invited community, civil rights, and religious leaders to view the surveillance video available of the shooting. Darnell Williams, president and chief executive of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts said about the shooting, “What the video does reveal to us very clearly is that the individual was not on the cell phone, the individual was not shot in the back and that the information reported by others that that was the case was inaccurate”.
Boston Imam Abdullah Faaruuq who also viewed the video said, “I don’t think that he was shot in the back…However we couldn’t see clearly at all… We can’t say what happened. We weren’t there. We do see a very vague video that is not clear as to what transpired. It wasn’t at a bus stop. He wasn’t shot in the back and there is not detail enough on the video to tell us exactly what happened”.
Usaamah allegedly had two accomplices. One, David Wright was arrested for obstruction of justice. He allegedly destroyed Usaamah’s smart phone that had information of the plot. He was in court today to hear charges against him. His next court date is on June 19.
The third accomplice is unknown at this time.