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Man Killed By NYPD After Hatchet Attack Was Homegrown Terrorist, Police Say

By  Ben Fractenberg Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska and Janon Fisher | October 24, 2014 6:29pm | Updated on October 27, 2014 7:56am

 NYPD Commissioner Bratton called the hatchet swinging man who attacked police in Jamaica a "recluse" who was inspired by terrorists.
Hatchet Attack on Police Was Terrorism, Police Say
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ONE POLICE PLAZA — The hatchet-swinging Queens Village man who was shot dead after injuring two officers on a busy Jamaica Avenue shopping district was depressed, reclusive and inspired by Islamic terror groups, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said Friday.

"I'm very comfortable that this was a terrorist attack," Bratton said during an afternoon press conference.

Zale H. Thompson, 32, had converted to Islam two years ago and took inspiration from the White House fence-jumper and this week's attack on the Canadian parliament, the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism John Miller said.

Police, who are working with the FBI in the investigation, said that they could not be certain that Thompson acted alone or in coordination with a terror group.

Investigators combed his social media pages and turned up statements by Thompson that Miller described as "anti-government, anti-Western and, in some cases, anti-white."

“It appears just from the electronic forensics this is something he has been thinking about for some time,” Miller said.

The attack began Thursday without a word, when Thompson struck rookie Officer Kevin Healey, 24, in the head with an 18-and-a-half-inch metal hatchet as Healy and three other officers posed for a photographer on a rainy Jamaica Avenue sidewalk near 162nd Street about 2 p.m., police said.

He wounded Officer Joseph Meeker, 25, in the right arm with another blow. Officer Healey is still in the hospital in critical but stable condition, authorities said.

The two other officers then opened fire on Thompson, killing him, police said.

A 29-year-old woman was struck in the lower back by a stray round fired by police, the commissioner said. She is in critical but stable condition.

Investigators, who Bratton said were in the very early stages of their investigation, believe Thompson was self-radicalized but inspired by ISIS, Al Qaeda and Al-Shaabab.

His father told police that he had been spending long hours alone in his room on the Internet, Bratton said.

"He was described by family members as a recluse and by other family members as depressed lately," NYPD Chief of Detectives Bob Boyce said.

Thompson was kicked out of the military in 2003 for an unspecified drug office, Boyce said. He also has six arrests in Oxnard, California, mostly for domestic violence attacks, records show.

He has never been arrested in New York.

Police are asking anyone with additional information to come forward.