Ahmad Rahami, the suspect in the bombings in New Jersey and New York, slept for hours on the doorstep of a bar Monday morning, before the bar owner, Harry Bains, called the police, Bains told MSNBC and the local NBC4 New York.
When Bains arrived at 6:45 a.m., he said he saw Rahami sitting hunched over on a bench outside. When it began to rain, Rahami moved to the bar vestibule, Bains told MSNBC, and slouched against a glass door with a crack in it.
“I was worried he might put on the pressure and the glass might break,” Bains said, so he tried to talk to him.
“He just woke up and looked up at the crack and said, ‘Oh I am sorry,’ and he moved to the other side of the door,” Bains — who owns the Linden, New Jersey bar, Merdie’s Tavern — told MSNBC.
According to his interview with NBC4 New York, Bains couldn’t help but think that the man looked like the person of interest in the bombing investigation whose image was playing over and over again on television Monday morning, so he decided to call the police.
“First the one single cop came in an unmarked car,” Bains told MSNBC, and just looked at the sleeping Rahami, perhaps “waiting for his back-up.”
A second cop came and began to talk to him to wake him up, and Rahami pulled out a gun, Bains said.
“He just pulled a gun and shot — pow pow — shot twice,” Bains said, before recounting the shoot out that ended in Rahami’s capture.
Watch the full MSNBC interview below:
