Suspect in fatal ambush of two Iowa police officers captured

By Brian Frank

DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) – Police in Iowa said on Wednesday they have captured a man suspected of killing two police officers hours earlier as they sat in their patrol cars in what authorities called separate and unprovoked attacks.

Scott Michael Greene, who is 46 and white, was taken into custody after police named him as their suspect in the ambushes, a police spokeswoman in Urbandale, Iowa said. (For live coverage of the Iowa police shootings click here:

Police said they found the first slain officer’s body about 1:06 a.m. (2.06 a.m. ET) in Urbandale, an affluent Des Moines suburb, and the second about 20 minutes later about two miles (3 km) away, in Des Moines. Police declined to release the names of the officers awaiting notification of their families.

It was unclear what provoked Wednesday’s attacks, Des Moines police department spokesman Paul Parizek told a news conference prior to Greene’s arrest, adding that “we may never know.” But it appeared the suspect had a recent run-in with police.

A 10-minute video posted on YouTube last month by a user calling himself Scott Greene showed an interaction with officers following an incident at a sports stadium in which he described holding up a Confederate battle flag during the playing of the U.S. national anthem. He is heard claiming that he was assaulted.

Reuters was unable to immediately confirm whether the video was made by the suspect, whose face does not appear in it. It records a male voice arguing with police over the incident.

The Confederate flag is a racially charged symbol for its association with the pro-slavery South in the U.S. Civil War.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee and Gina Cherelus, Dave Ingram and Michael Flaherty in New York; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Will Dunham)

New York City bombing suspect captured in New Jersey

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (C) and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (L) tour the site of an explosion that occurred on Saturday night in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York, USA,

By Joseph Ax and Mica Rosenberg

ELIZABETH, N.J. (Reuters) – An Afghanistan-born American sought in connection with a series of bombings that wounded 29 people in the New York City area over the weekend was in custody after a gun battle with police on Monday, a New Jersey mayor said.

Ahmad Khan Rahami of Elizabeth, New Jersey, was captured after firing at police officers in Linden, New Jersey, about 20 miles (32 km) outside New York, Elizabeth Mayor Chris Bollwage said. Two officers were shot, one in the hand and the other in a bullet-proof vest, he said.

“Mr. Rahami also sustained shots and an ambulance has taken him away,” Bollwage said.

Video from WABC television showed a conscious man described as Rahami on a gurney and being loaded into an ambulance.

Investigators believe more people were involved in the New York and New Jersey bombing plots, two U.S. officials told Reuters.

Earlier on Monday, New York Police had released a photo of Rahami, 28, and said they wanted to question him about a Saturday night explosion in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood and for a blast earlier that day in Seaside Park, New Jersey, authorities said.

In addition to the two incidents, officials are probing a backpack containing bombs found in a New Jersey train station on Sunday, and an unexploded pressure-cooker bomb located blocks away from the Chelsea blast site.

No one was injured in the other blasts.

As reports of Rahami being taken in custody were being released, U.S. President Barack Obama said he saw no connection between the explosions and a separate weekend incident where a man stabbed nine people at a mall in central Minnesota before being shot dead.

He said authorities are investigating the stabbing as a potential act of terrorism.

The man in the Minnesota incident was described a “soldier of the Islamic State,” the militant group’s news agency said on Sunday.

(Reporting by Mica Rosenberg in Elizabeth, Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Scott Malone and Alan Crosby)