Relatives ID Albuquerque man killed by FBI while authorities remain silent

Family members have identified the person who was shot and killed by FBI agents last week in Northeast Albuquerque.

Attorney Ahmad Assed, who is assisting the family, said an FBI task force killed 32-year-old Ahmad Nassar on Aug. 8 inside his family’s home near Mountain and Chelwood Park.

He said agents knocked and asked for Nassar before detaining his mother and brother. Assed said authorities then “took over” and, an hour or two later, told the brother and mother Nassar had been killed.

According to an FBI search warrant Assed shared with the Journal, agents removed a BB gun from the home after the shooting. Assed said the FBI asked the family to leave for a few days and, when they returned, the house was “a mess.”

“We’re not entirely sure about the facts, but I can tell you from community-based perspective, there’s outrage in the community about how that went down,” Assed said.

He said Nassar had been shot at least four times.

Meanwhile, federal authorities have declined multiple requests to identify Nassar as the man killed or give any details about the incident.

“As a matter of policy, the U.S. Attorney’s Office can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any investigation. We therefore respectfully decline to respond to your inquiry,” Tessa DuBerry, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office responded in an email last week.

On Tuesday, DuBerry again declined to comment or answer questions.

Assed said Nassar, a father, was known by the FBI and local authorities to have mental health issues, which were well-documented in recent years.

“A lot of people just felt really sorry for him because he was harmless in the community’s eyes, he said. “He just suffered a lot from mental health disease, and was a superb young man, when he was on his medications and didn’t come off.”

Federal court records show Nassar was charged in 2018 with stealing $20 from a gas station clerk by implying that he had a gun. Within hours of the robbery, authorities say Nassar had been discharged from a psychiatric unit and was running in traffic yelling “(expletive) the USA” and “Jihad.”

Nassar’s defense attorney in the case argued in a motion that the arrest “broke the cyclical pattern he was living for the past several years.”

The attorney referenced several incidents since 2015, including one during which FBI agents brought Nassar to the hospital after he was found waving an ISIS flag and “making incoherent statements in a public park.” No other details on that incident were given.

“His psychotic symptoms arise, he would self-medicate with street drugs, have a psychotic episode that results in him being brought to the psychiatric emergency room, get clean, show improvement and get released,” according to the motion. “... The 15 months he has been in jail for this charge are the most stable 15 months he has experienced in several years.”

The motion included a letter from his father, uncle and sister, calling him very well-mannered and a “caring member of his family.”

“I believe he deserve(s) another chance to resume his life and start new chapter,” Nassar’s sister wrote.