To neighbors and customers of his family’s storefront chicken takeout, Ahmad Khan Rahami was a quiet, friendly presence behind the counter who liked talking about cars and was generous with free food.
So when the 28-year-old Afghan immigrant was named Monday as the lead “person of interest” in bombings in New York and New Jersey, then apprehended hours later in a shootout with police, people in this gritty neighborhood a few miles from Newark’s airport could scarcely believe it.
Rahami’s father and brothers had long nursed tensions with local officials in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and some neighbors over the restaurant’s late hours. But Ahmad Rahami’s demeanor – religiously devout, but far more likely to talk about worldly pursuits than his faith – never hinted at anything but good will, customers said.
“He’d always talk about his cars. He loved his Civics, he loved going fast,” said Ryan McCann, a frequent customer at First American Fried Chicken, the restaurant that Rahami’s father, Mohammed, has run since 2002. “He was so friendly he’d give us free chicken here and there, just because we shopped there so much.”
Rahami, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Afghanistan, was taken into custody Monday after a shootout with police in the nearby town of Linden.