A suspect is in custody in the fatal shooting of a New York imam and his assistant, police said Monday — with a law enforcement official later adding that a search of his home turned up a gun and clothing believed used in the daylight attack Saturday.
The items were found in a wall of the Brooklyn home, the official said.
The man was detained after crashing into an unmarked police car. He had been under surveillance, two law enforcement officials told CNN.
Police did not release the suspect’s name.
Imam Maulama Akonjee, 55, and his assistant, Thara Uddin, 64, were gunned down after prayers at a nearby mosque, police said.
The two were shot in the head about 1:50 p.m. in Ozone Park, a working-class section of Queens with a burgeoning Bangladeshi population.
“There is nothing in the preliminary investigation that would indicate they were targeted because of their faith,” NYPD Deputy Inspector Henry Sautner told reporters Saturday.
The victims were wearing religious attire at the time of the shooting, according to a law enforcement source with direct knowledge of the investigation.
Al-Furqan Jame Masjid Mosque is about two blocks from where the men were gunned down. They were walking home after midday prayers.
Nazim Uddin, a neighbor of the imam, told CNN he ran outside from his home when he heard gunfire. He remembered the imam as a good man who only a day earlier had delivered a eulogy at the mosque.
Police said surveillance video captured the gunman leaving the scene with his weapon in hand.
NYPD Chief of Detectives Bob Boyce said that the 36-year-old suspect was arrested Sunday night.
Officers reviewed surveillance video that placed a black GMC Trailblazer at the scene of the killings, according to Boyce.
Officers were conducting surveillance of the suspect’s vehicle when they observed him enter his car. When the detectives approached him, the suspect allegedly rammed into their vehicle several times with his Trailblazer, according to Boyce.
The man was arrested on hit and run and assault-on-a-police-officer allegations.
No motive in the killings has been determined, and the NYPD is not ruling out a hate crime as a possible motive, according to Boyce.