Evans with a photo of the knife; Vincent Lisi of the FBI and Mayor Walsh listen.
UPDATE: WHDH reports a man with a connection to Rahim was arrested in Everett.
A 26-year-old Roslindale man under a terror watch left law-enforcement officers no choice this morning but to shoot him, Police Commissioner William Evans said.
Evans said surveillance video from the small shopping plaza on Washington Street at Enneking Parkway showed a Boston police officer and an FBI agent retreating when Usaama Rahim began going after them with a "large military knife" shortly after 7 a.m., even though they did not have their guns drawn when they first approached him.
The video, Evans said at a press conference, showed Rahim continuing to advance towards them even as they told him to drop the knife. Finally, he said, he got close enough that they felt their lives were in danger and they fired.
Rahim, hit twice, in the upper body and stomach, collapsed. He was taken to Brigham and Women's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The two law-enforcement officers had approached Rahim after he left his Blue Ledge Drive apartment around 7 a.m. to talk to him about their ongoing surveillance of him by a terrorism task force, Evans and Vincent Lisi, agent in charge of the FBI's Boston office, said.
Lisi said they did not intend to arrest him, but that something alarmed them enough to want to talk to him this morning - and they knew he was "armed and dangerous" - Lisi said. However, Lisi declined to be more specific.
Evans and Lisi said Rahim had been under 24-hour surveillance by a task force of officers from Boston Police, the FBI and State Police for some time. They also declined to say anything about that investigation, except to say that it continues.
"We don't think there's any concern for the public safety right now," Lisi did say.
Suffolk County District Attorney Dan Conley said his office will conduct an investigation into Rahim's death. He added that officials are "expediting" any post-mortem investigation so that his body can be turned over to his family for the speedy burial called for under Moslim law.
Rahim's older brother, Ibrihim, retired in 2011 as an imam at the Masjid Al-Quran mosque in Dorchester. In a Facebook posting, he disputed the official account of his brother's death.
Mayor Walsh attended the press conference but did not speak.
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Comments
Because many people think the
By anon
Wed, 06/03/2015 - 6:36am
Because many people think the FBI (for no real reason whatsoever) are big mean bad guys who want to do nothing but ruin lives. That's right kids, part of an FBI agents job description is to run investigations at glacial speed and shoot knife wielding territors in that back.
Why were they following him?
By tachometer
Wed, 06/03/2015 - 12:31pm
I heard on the news that he had threatened to attack law enforcement officers on social media which is why they were following him. If this is true and if it is also true that they approached him without weapons drawn and he attacked them as described I'd say he ended up where he was possibly going to anyway but failed to accomplish his goals along the way.
Meanwhile...
By Dave
Tue, 06/02/2015 - 5:55pm
[img]http://s8.postimg.org/shak95yph/brianross.png[/img]
18"x 24" color photo of the knife
By Markk02474
Tue, 06/02/2015 - 6:26pm
Reminds me of the 1967 song "Alice's Resturant" by Arlo Guthrie, upsized for 2015
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/a/arlo+guthrie/alices+r...
This is what happens when you
By DonnieBoston
Tue, 06/02/2015 - 6:33pm
This is what happens when you play defense instead of offense over seas: We now got terrorists living amongst us ready to attack us here on the homeland.
You may be too young to remember ...
By adamg
Tue, 06/02/2015 - 6:54pm
But we had terrorists launching attacks in the 1970s, too. And they had nothing to do with our foreign policy.
Jesus
By erik g
Tue, 06/02/2015 - 7:10pm
The day you must be having moderating anonymous comments today, Adam. If it were me, I would have gone "Nuke the site from orbit" 9 hours ago. Next time you're out in parkside JP, first drink is on me.
That comfy armchair
By itchy
Wed, 06/03/2015 - 1:19pm
Must be where you learned this. What game did you happen to be playing when this dawned on you?
That appears to be a KA-BAR
By anon
Tue, 06/02/2015 - 9:13pm
That appears to be a KA-BAR or a similar knock-off. Posting because the Globe misidentified it as a "machete" (much bigger knife) this morning.
Funnily
By anon
Tue, 06/02/2015 - 11:36pm
when they were saying "machete" and "military knife" this morning, I though, "Gee I bet that's a KA-BAR."
My husband has his father's old one lying around the house, for some reason. I think he took it on the T to go camping a few times, too...
Yup
By anon
Wed, 06/03/2015 - 3:46am
media in general are notorious for incorrectly identifying weapons, and other details. This sloppiness extends to non-crime stories as well.
Ontario 8325 Spec Plus SP6
By chaosjake
Wed, 06/03/2015 - 2:20pm
Ontario 8325 Spec Plus SP6 Fighting Knife Fixed 8" Blade
I did some google-fu on the press pictures during some downtime yesterday.
Do you think Marty
By Anne Weatherbee
Wed, 06/03/2015 - 8:39am
looks like a deer in the headlights in this pic? When are Charlie Baker and Marty Walsh going to do something about the mosques in Boston that are radicalizing these people?
You are the worst.
By MattyC
Wed, 06/03/2015 - 9:46am
You are the worst.
Conservative media, websites
By Anonymous
Wed, 06/03/2015 - 1:35pm
Conservative media, websites mostly like Pamala Geller's and Breibart have been publishing articles about Boston mosques and radicalization, mostly connected to Tsarnaev coverage. You have to be a close reader to distinguish the fear mongering from the fact. I can't say if the deceased, his brother or his father were ever identified in that coverage.
I'm interested if this man ever made a credible threat on line or whether the NSA and FBI flagged him because of what he read.
Oddly as it sounds, I really hope there's compelling evidence he was seriously into planning violence but I don't think there is because I think that constitutes probable cause and JTTF said they didn't have probable cause.
No
By ElizaLeila
Wed, 06/03/2015 - 9:53am
I think he's trying to look serious and involved.
trying to look
Read much?
By Sally
Wed, 06/03/2015 - 9:59am
They left the Islamic Center because it was "too liberal." The elder Tsarnaev was basically booted from the Cambridge mosque on Prospect Street because they thought he was nuts. But please--keep going ahead and blaming...who?
unreal
By Malcolm Tucker
Wed, 06/03/2015 - 10:08am
please throw your computer and/or smartphone and/or tablet into the ocean. fucking hell.
I know, right?
By erik g
Wed, 06/03/2015 - 10:31am
Those houses of worship sure are shit-stirrers. And it's not just the mosques! Just look at all the cathedrals and synagogues plaguing this fair city, radicalizing their worshipers to attempt god-knows-what. I heard a Christian was convicted for going around murdering people! I blame the religious leadership for not taking a stand against that sort of thing. All hope is not lost, though: there's an easy solution staring us in the face, though. We just have to methodically set fire to the buildings, and then--
Hey, where are you going? I thought we were preaching the same gospel?
Imagine
By Mjolnir
Wed, 06/03/2015 - 4:51pm
there's no Heaven. It's easy if you try...
What, specifically?
By Scratchie
Wed, 06/03/2015 - 10:35am
What, specifically, should the governor and mayor "do" about these houses of worship?
Now, now, silly
By itchy
Wed, 06/03/2015 - 10:54am
We can't do that because then they would also have to do something about Scott Lively and also that AssResistance nest of gay hate, plus the bigoted hate churches that feed off the military bases.
Oh, Anne...
By Brian Riccio
Wed, 06/03/2015 - 12:44pm
Are you single? I'd love to take you to lunch, film it and then post it onto YouTube for everyone to enjoy! You name the restaurant and I'm paying!
Keep your wallet in your pocket
By MattyC
Wed, 06/03/2015 - 1:50pm
I'm sure we can GoFundMe the shit out of that.
Sorry Dvdoff
By Scratchie
Wed, 06/03/2015 - 2:30pm
I don't think he's your type.
May I suggest the Unicorn Cafe?
By moxie
Wed, 06/03/2015 - 2:49pm
You know, the place where your meals are served on the backs of rainbow-hued Unicorns, attended by winged faeries and purple imps?
It's the same place that they teach cops to shoot threatening, knife-wielding assailants in the knee rather than the torso. You'll love it there, Dvdoff.
Will Howie Carr be my server?
By Brian Riccio
Wed, 06/03/2015 - 5:04pm
Listening in today, he and his coterie of cretins are more than ecstatic than this man decided to make his last stand. In their minds, he was guilty of being Muslim, so that seems to be good enough for some people.
That's just what Marty looks
By chaosjake
Wed, 06/03/2015 - 2:22pm
That's just what Marty looks like. He has resting simpleton face.
A lot has been reported and a
By anon
Wed, 06/03/2015 - 4:53pm
A lot has been reported and a lot of comments have been made about this case, but there are some glaring holes in the story that I think absolutely have to be answered before anybody can possibly reach any sort of conclusion. We know he was under surveillance, we know he was carrying a knife, and we know he was acting hostilely before he was shot. We don't know what led up to that confrontation. How do you go from under surveillance to shot dead ? That's not a single step process. We have to know the specifics of what transpired and I can't think of any valid reason we should learn that later rather than now. We know the police and agents involved did not intend to arrest him. But they didn't say exactly what they did intend to do and why, or even if, they chose to do it then and there. Did they confront him intentionally or were they supposed to be shadowing him and got their cover blown ? We know the police were aware of his plot to attack police. So why did they have so few officers there, and ones armed only with guns and not more cops armed also with non lethal weapons ? There are a lot of gaps to be filled in and with the suspect dead I don't think there is any credible reason for the police to withhold the answers. And before somebody chimes in with "ongoing case", the case against the dead guy is closed. If there is an ongoing investigation involving other people then by all means keep details of that secret.
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