The FBI and Boston police shot and killed a knife-wielding man known for extremist views and arrested another person yesterday as part of an anti-terrorism task force investigation into threats to behead law enforcement officials, the Boston Herald reports. The two-state probe by a Joint Terrorism Task Force ended when Usaamah Rahim, 26, came at cops and an FBI agent with a military-style knife and was shot twice in a drug store parking lot around 7 a.m. FBI agent Vincent Lisi would only say task force members wanted to “interview him and talk to him about his intentions.”
Police Commissioner William Evans said authorities knew Rahim “had some extremism as far as his views,” but stopped short of confirming that it was connected to a stream of chilling online calls from ISIS urging its followers around the world to attack law enforcement and military officials. Yesterday’s shooting was captured by surveillance video, which Evans said shows Rahim “coming at the officers” as police retreated, telling him to “Drop the knife!” They then shot him twice, once in the torso and abdomen, he said. “We believed he was a threat,” Evans said. “He was someone we were watching for quite a time. The level of alarm brought us to question him.”