Police commissioner Bill Bratton today called Thursday's hatchet attack on four police officers a 'terrorist act' by a man authorities say visited radical websites and converted to Islam two years ago.
During a briefing at NYPD headquarters, John Miller, the department's deputy commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism said the suspect, Zale Thompson, who was shot and killed at the scene in Queens, had visited the websites of terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS, and also looked at reports about the latest White House fence jumper and gunman who attacked Canadian lawmakers earlier this week, according to a search of the man's computer.
'Every indicator points to he was acting alone: self-radicialized, self-directed,' said Miller.
Asked the incident was a terrorist act, Bratton replied, 'I'm very comfortable this was a terrorist attack, certainly. And we will attempt to confirm, as Mr. Miller has indicated [if] is this the 16th [terrorist attack]-when we are definitively in a position to bring closure to it. But as I'm looking at this at this particular point in time I would be comfortable-preliminary evaluation-that this was a terrorist act.'
Bratton said Thompson, 32, had been arrested in California six times, and was involuntarily discharged from the military three years ago.
Miller said it does not appear anyone else was directly involved in the attack that left two rookie officers in Jamaica injured.
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Posted by Unknown on Friday, October 24, 2014 - Rating: 4.5
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