Hundreds of tips came after Albuquerque police sounded an alarm over the shooting deaths of four Muslim men in the city, leading to an arrest in the killings on Tuesday.
Although authorities are still searching for a motive and working to confirm if they are all related, police have arrested 51-year-old Muhammad Syed, describing him as the “primary suspect.”
“Detectives uncovered evidence showing that the shooter knew the victims to some degree and that an interpersonal conflict may have led to the shootings,” police said in a news release Tuesday.
The clues pointed investigators to Syed, who police believe was in possession of at least two firearms that matched two of the crime scenes, according to Kyle Hartsock, deputy commander of the New York City Police Department’s criminal investigations division. the city.
One of the firearms recovered from his home was linked to shell casings found at the scenes of two of the murders, while shell casings from a gun found in his car were linked to one of the scenes, according to the affidavit of arrest.
The killings took place between November 2021 and August this year, with the last three occurring in the span of two weeks.
Police said three of the victims, Muhammad Afzaal Hussain, 27, Aftab Hussein, 41, and Mohammad Zaher Ahmadi, 62, were “ambushed without warning, shot and killed.” A fourth man, Naeem Hussain, 25, was shot dead after attending Hussain and Hussein’s funeral.
A criminal complaint obtained from CNN affiliate KOAT sheds more light on two of the killings.
On July 26, police went to Rhode Island Street, where they found Aftab Hussein with multiple gunshot wounds next to a car. Detectives learned that the gunman had waited behind a bush near the driveway where the victim usually parked his vehicle and fired through the bush several times as Hussein got out of his vehicle, according to the complaint.
On August 1, police received a call about a drive-by shooting near the intersection of Cornell Drive and Garfield Avenue. Muhammad Afzaal Hussain was found with multiple gunshot wounds, the complaint says.
The suspect, Syed, is being charged with two of the killings: the killing of Aftab Hussein on July 26 and the killing of Muhammad Afzaal Hussain on August 1, according to police.
As for the other two murders, police said there is also evidence that Syed is the “most likely person of interest or suspect,” Hartsock said.
According to the complaint, Syed denied any involvement in the killings during an interview with police on Tuesday.
How the research was developed
Police first noted similarities between the deaths of Aftab Hussein and Muhammad Afzaal Hussain, which occurred just days apart.
“We were able to link shell casings found at both scenes that were likely fired from the same firearm,” Hartsock said. “We quickly started looking at other cases that might be similar and identified that there might be a really active public threat.”
The shootings prompted police to examine whether they were related to a murder that occurred on November 7, 2021. That day, officers found an Afghan man, Mohammad Ahmadi, with a gunshot wound in the parking lot behind the business he ran with his brother.
As the investigation unfolded, another murder occurred just before midnight on August 5 in the area of Truman Street and Grand Avenue, where police found Naeem Hussain dead from a gunshot wound.
Police increased patrols near mosques and other areas, and the governor sent state police into the city.
Police released images of a “vehicle of interest” that they said could be linked to the shooting. They asked for the public’s help in locating the silver sedan.
The city’s Muslim community was nervous. Some stopped going to their local mosques or going out late at night, and some even avoided going out to buy food.
At the same time, dozens of tips began to reach law enforcement.
“We have received a total of around 230 leads,” FBI Special Agent in Charge Raul Bujanda said Tuesday.
Residents also began voluntarily uploading surveillance video from their homes to an online portal that was created specifically for the investigation. Police analyzing the footage ended up finding video that captured the gunshots and vehicles leaving the scene, according to Hartsock.
Eventually, a tip came from the community, leading investigators to identify Syed as a suspect and track the car.
Albuquerque police and the FBI received multiple tips about Syed and his vehicle, a Volkswagen Jetta, according to the complaint.
As police waited to execute a search warrant at the suspect’s home, they saw him get into what they believed to be the same vehicle that had been linked to the killings.
Officers stopped the vehicle and took Syed into custody near Santa Rosa, New Mexico. That’s when they saw firearms inside the vehicle, according to Hartsock.
Police executing the search warrant at Syed’s home found more weapons, according to police.
“There were multiple firearms recovered from that house that are being tested on an ongoing basis. But at this time we believe that at least one of them inside the house and one of them inside the car that was stopped match… two crime scenes.” in Rhode Island and Cornell, and that is the basis for the charges being filed today,” Hartsock added.
According to the complaint, Syed told police that he “was driving to Texas to find a new place for his family to live because the situation in Albuquerque was bad. Muhammad later made reference to the shooting of Muslims on the news.”
Prior to the suspect’s arrest, police found records of Syed and one of his sons purchasing firearms and gun accessories at different stores in Albuquerque. Those purchases included a 9mm pistol purchased on Jan. 28, 2021, a telescopic sight for an AK-47 purchased on Aug. 1, and a 7.62×39 caliber pistol and rifle purchased on July 15, according to the complaint.
The document also indicates that both the 7.62×39 and the 9mm “were the two calibers of weapons used in the aforementioned homicides.”
While searching the Jetta, police said they found a 9mm shell casing between the car’s windshield and hood, and two 7.62 x 39 shell casings inside the vehicle, as well as a 9mm pistol.
The 9mm shell casing found on the windshield matched a shell casing found at the crime scene on August 1, according to the complaint.
CNN was at the suspect’s home.
Hours before police announced that Syed was a suspect, CNN was inside his home and spoke with his daughter, who offered information about her father and what happened when they last saw each other, which was before his arrest and before he was arrested. authorities to execute a search warrant at his home. family house
The daughter, one of Syed’s six children, spoke to CNN Tuesday morning while the family was still cleaning up the mess left behind by investigators who had emptied the contents of the house the night before. CNN has chosen not to name the daughter out of concern for her safety.
“My father is not a person who can kill someone. My father has always talked about peace. That is why we are here in the United States. We come from Afghanistan, from fighting, from shooting,” he told CNN.
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