Terror suspect has history of mental problems, family says

Associated Press

ROCHESTER, N.Y.

An ex-convict arrested in a plot to carry out an attack at a bar on New Year’s Eve is a panhandler who’d been asked to leave the tavern in the past, its owner said, while the man’s family said he had a long history of mental problems.

Federal authorities have said Emanuel Lutchman, 25, sought to prove he was worthy of joining the Islamic State group by leading an attack in Rochester with a machete and knives provided by an FBI informant.

After authorities announced his arrest Thursday, his father and mother described a man who’d had psychiatric troubles since childhood, had recently stabbed himself in a suicide attempt and, they said, wouldn’t have conducted the attack on his own.

“The boy is impressionable,” his father, Omar Lutchman, told NBC News. “First he was a Blood; then he was a Crip; then he became a Muslim. He’s easily manipulated.”