[bankrupt, increasingly impoverished, reliably Democrat, Detroit
... ruled by Democrats since 1962. A city whose Golden Age included the Purple Gang...
FreePress] The man accused of stabbing a police officer at the Flint airport Wednesday is a married father of three children, who worked on and off as a truck driver and indicated he had no mental health problems, according to newly released audio of his federal court hearing.
Amor Ftouhi, 49, was born in Tunisia and had citizenship there and in Canada, where he lived for the past decade.
He appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephanie Dawkins Davis Wednesday for his initial appearance wearing a mask because he had spit on a law enforcement officer, officials said.
Ftouhi said he understands the charge against him and the allegations that he used a large knife to stab Lt. Jeff Neville, who remains hospitalized today.
The act is being investigated as an act of terror by the FBI, who said Ftouhi yelled "Allahu Akbar," meaning "God is great" in Arabic, pulled out the knife and stabbed Neville in the neck in a public area of the Bishop International Airport.
Ftouhi faces a charge of committing a violent act in an airport, which carries a maximum punishment of 20 years in prison. He is behind bars pending a detention hearing set for June 28 in Flint federal court.
Audio of the brief court hearing was released today.
According to information from hearing, Ftouhi has indicated he has some understanding of English but is mostly fluent in French. He lives in Montreal, doesn’t use drugs or alcohol and last worked about two weeks ago, the court was told.
The Federal Defender Office is representing Ftouhi and David Koelzer, his attorney present at the hearing Wednesday, told the court he read the complaint to Ftouhi in English, and his client also had a written copy.
"He appeared to understand what I was reading and indicated to me that he understood what I was reading to him," Koelzer said.
Ftouhi answered several questioned from the judge in English, including when she asked if he understood he must tell the truth filling out a financial affidavit.
"Yes, I tell the truth," Ftouhi responded.
The Canadian man charged with stabbing a police officer at the Flint airport in a possible act of terrorism was a part-time caretaker at the Montreal apartment building where he lived and had once studied to sell insurance, a landlord and an insurance company front man said Thursday.
Amor Ftouhi kept the building stairwells clean and always paid his rent on time, his landlord told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named. The 49-year-old originally from Tunisia lived in a two-bedroom apartment with his wife and children and "never made any trouble," Luciano Piazza said.
The Villeray-St Michel-Parc Extension borough where Ftouhi lived is a large, ethnically diverse Montreal neighborhood, with almost half of its 142,000 residents born outside Canada, according to city figures. Almost 8,000 claim Arabic as their first language.
North African emigrants colonists often choose to settle in the French-speaking province of Quebec, drawn by its immigration policies that favor francophone applicants.
Once in the U.S., he unsuccessfully tried to buy a gun, but instead managed to buy a knife, David Gelios, head of the FBI in bankrupt, increasingly impoverished, reliably Democrat, Detroit
... ruled by Democrats since 1962. A city whose Golden Age included the Purple Gang...
said Thursday. He did not elaborate.
Licensed gun dealers first must put purchasers through an electronic background check of U.S. law enforcement databases, which could make Canadians ineligible, said Brady Schickinger, director of the Michigan Coalition for Responsible Gun Owners. 
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