Boston police on Monday released surveillance footage showing the killing of a terrorism suspect by law enforcement officers after they approached him on foot last Tuesday morning.
Family members of the deceased man, Usaama Rahim, 26, have challenged the assertion by police that officers were forced to kill Rahim after he threatened them with a knife. The video of the scene, shot from a distance across a CVS parking lot in Roslindale, is thought to be a key piece of evidence as the district attorney weighs whether the killing was justified.
Police said they were releasing the video to forestall rumors that police had shot Rahim in the back. Concerns about a possible plan by Rahim to commit violence “rose to the level that we needed to question him” on Tuesday morning, Boston police commissioner William Evans said last week.
The figures in the video are visible only in silhouette, and no weapons are plainly visible, although one law enforcement officer can be seen raising his arms at a figure identified by police as Rahim, as if pointing a gun at him.
The figure then falls to the pavement. Rahim was killed by gunfire from one Boston police officer and from one other officer on the joint terrorism taskforce, police said.
The video as screened shows a pixelated, zoomed-in view. The scene begins with a silhouette identified as Rahim walking across the parking lot. Five law enforcement officers, whom police have said included FBI agents, approach him, at least one emerging from a parked vehicle.
The officers can be seen to surround Rahim, while giving him room as he moves toward them. The group, with Rahim in the middle, moves across the parking lot before the suspect falls. Rahim does not appear to make any sudden movements, although several of the officers move quickly around his perimeter.
There is some background activity captured in the video. As the six stand in the parking lot, a yellow car parked next to them pulls quickly away. At the opposite end of the parking lot a police cruiser can be seen to pull to a stop. A school bus crosses the camera at the end of the scene.
Evans said last week that “the video clearly shows these four, five officers backtracking away from the suspect as he’s coming at them”. Others who saw the video, however, including Abdullah Faaruuk, spokesman for the Islamic Society of Boston, said the clip did not clearly capture the event.
“The video is inconclusive,” Faaruuk said last week. “I don’t think he was shot in the back, by virtue of that; however, we couldn’t see clearly at all ... whether he was brandishing a knife or not ... It was very far away. We can’t be clear as to what transpired.”
The video was screened last Thursday for relatives of the slain suspect. “The family members were clearly grief-stricken by the visuals, and to be expected,” an older brother, Ibrahim Rahim, told Boston’s WBUR radio. “I love my brother and to see that was difficult to watch.”
