Before he was shot dead this week after threatening police with a military-style knife, Usaamah Rahim called his father to say goodbye to him, the Boston Herald reports.
Rahim, 26, was neutralized by police officers after the suspected jihadi charged at them with a knife, according to police testimony and a video that showed the encounter. Federal officials say that Rahim was in the final stages of a plan to behead a police officer when he was shot dead.
Congressman Stephen F. Lynch (D-MA) told the Herald that he saw documents linking Rahim to the Islamic State.
“I did see some affidavits from a special agent that was connected to the Rahim case, and I know they were working on the premise that he had been in contact with terrorist elements,” said the Congressman. “Now, I don’t know if that was ISIS or if it was simply that he was radicalized by terrorist elements.”
“I got the sense that they were acting on the premise that he was in contact with terrorists,” said Rep. Lynch.
Sources told the Herald that police had been aware of the conversation Rahim had with his father, in which he said “goodbye,” leading authorities (who had already placed Rahim under 24-hour surveillance) to believe that he would act imminently.
The aunt of the deceased terror suspect said Rahim had no connection to the Islamic State or any other terror groups.
“There was no plot. There was no scheming,” said his aunt, who identified herself as Karen. “He felt threatened,” she added.
“As you all know, with the current slaughter of black men that’s going on across the nation, that’s enough to make any black man feel threatened,” said Karen, who was the only member of Rahim’s family to speak to reporters, according to NBC News.
“There’s a lot of black men and black people that are angry at the cops and putting things out on social media about the cops. When you add Islam, everybody in the media wants to put ‘terrorism’ in there,” she added.