Authorities have released the name of a man who police shot and killed Saturday after officers noticed a fire at a Detroit-area mosque.
Dearborn officials said Sunday that Ahmed Taqi, 37, was fatally shot after he exchanged gunfire with Dearborn police officers.
“The cause of death is a gunshot wound to the neck,” Wayne County spokeswoman Tiffani Jackson told the Detroit Free Press.
Police said officers noticed the fire early Saturday at the Al-Huda Islamic Association in Dearborn before they encountered Taqi, who was armed.
Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud said Taqi was “responsible for the fire.”
Police said Taqi fled the area and fired at police, beginning a pursuit that ended in Detroit.
Hammoud said that Taqi “fired at the officers again, which prompted return fire that fatally struck him.”
It’s unclear what motivated Taqi. But Hammoud said he may have been “experiencing a mental health crisis at the time.”
Detroit Police and Michigan State Police are investigating the shooting.
Dearborn has one of the largest Arab-American populations in the U.S.
