By Police1 Staff
LINDEN, N.J. — Body camera footage released Wednesday by the Linden Police Department shows an officer’s encounter with New York and New Jersey bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami.
An owner of a bar called police reporting a suspicious man sleeping in front of the bar, CBS 2 reported. When Officer Angel Padilla pulled up to the scene, he questioned the man — later discovered to be Rahami — and asked him for ID and his address.
Rahami told the officer his name and address, and Padilla called for backup, realizing he was talking to the bombing suspect, the Union County Prosecutor’s office said.
“He then told the person, ‘Show me your hands,’ and at that point, the suspect went to his side, pulled out a handgun and fired a round at our officer,” Linden police Capt. James Sarnicki told the station.
Padilla was shot in the torso, and Linden police Officer Pete Hammer was grazed in the head during the ensuing gunfight, according to the station.
In addition to the blast that injured 29 people in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood on Oct. 17, an unexploded pressure cooker bomb was found blocks away, and a pipe bomb exploded in a New Jersey shore town before a charity race. No one was injured in that incident. On Oct. 18, five explosive devices were discovered in a trash can at an Elizabeth train station.
Rahami is suspected in the incidents.