By Andrew Welsh-Huggins and Kantele Franko
Associated Press
HILLIARD, Ohio — Police responded frequently to disturbances in the past year at the apartment of a man who was fatally shot after authorities said he lunged at an officer with a knife outside an airport, according to records released Thursday.
The most recent report came Tuesday, one day before the shooting. That’s when an apartment property manager reported that someone fitting Hashim Hanif Ibn Abdul-Rasheed’s description was scaring residents by yelling and talking to himself as he loaded items into a vehicle.
Residents at the suburban Columbus apartment complex in Hilliard confirmed those details to The Associated Press on Thursday, saying the man was also pounding on an apartment door
“He was just screaming, ‘Why? Why?’” said Tim Butts, whose apartment is across the parking lot from Abdul-Rasheed’s.
Investigators say Abdul-Rasheed had tried unsuccessfully to buy an airline ticket using a woman’s ID early Wednesday afternoon, then got into the fatal confrontation with airport police after returning to his illegally parked vehicle.
Police were investigating the man’s background and why he was using a woman’s ID. No one answered the door Thursday at his Hilliard apartment.
A bomb squad found containers of frozen urine in the vehicle Abdul-Rasheed had parked at the airport, a police union official Thursday.
The suspicious material was confirmed as urine after the confrontation Wednesday at Port Columbus International Airport, said the local police union leader, Jason Pappas. It’s not clear why the man had the containers.
After the first shots were fired, Abdul-Rasheed got up and headed back toward the terminal, and a second airport officer shot him, Columbus police Sgt. Rich Weiner said. He was shot multiple times.
Abdul-Rasheed had multiple knives on him, police said.
The Columbus Regional Airport Authority identified the officers Thursday, saying they were all veteran officers with the airport or other agencies.
Records released by Columbus police Thursday say police responded to a domestic violence report at Abdul-Rasheed’s apartment Sept. 15 and Abdul-Rasheed’s wife said he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and had not been taking his medication.
“Mrs. Rasheed stated when her husband does not take his medication he gets really paranoid and thinks everyone is out to get him,” the report said.
According to a police report from Aug. 6, Abdul-Rasheed’s wife said “she thinks he is having a breakdown.” Messages were left with his wife Thursday.
Court records in Cuyahoga County, in northeastern Ohio, show Abdul-Rasheed was indicted in Cleveland in 1999 on charges including attempted murder, aggravated burglary and aggravated robbery — all with firearms specifications.
The court determined he was mentally ill subject to involuntary hospitalization and found him not guilty by reason of insanity in June 2000. He was committed to the maximum security unit of a psychiatric facility in Dayton.
He remained under court supervision for more than a decade, transitioning to a different behavioral health care facility, then a group home with full-time supervision in 2002, semi-supervised housing and eventually independent living. His commitment ended in December 2012, and the case was closed.
County records indicate the same defendant had been convicted of attempted felonious assault in 1995 under a plea deal. His five-to-10 year prison sentence was suspended, and he was put on probation and sentenced to community service and counseling.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press