Boy hostage, 12, is shot dead during police standoff after neighbor, 39, kills his Zumba instructor mom and wounds his sister, 16
A 12-year-old boy was shot dead while a neighbor who killed his mother and injured his older sister held a gun to his head during a standoff with police officers in Nevada on Tuesday.
The Henderson Police Department has not officially identified the victims, but family members and a Catholic school in Utah revealed that Diana Hawatmeh, 39, and her son, Joseph, were among the victims.
Hawatmeh's 16-year-old daughter, Yasmeen, was seriously injured and remained hospitalized on Thursday.
Diana Hawatmeh, 39 (second right) and her 12-year-old son, Joseph (front and center), were shot dead during an incident involving their neighbor and the police in Nevada. The woman's 16-year-old daughter, Yasmeen (far right), was wounded in the shooting
Cops in Henderson, Nevada, received a 911 call on Tuesday about gunfire and 'someone with a possible gunshot wound in a nearby doorway'. When police arrived they found three people suffering from gunshot wounds
Hawatmeh and her family split their time between Nevada and Utah. The married mother-of-three worked as a substitute teacher and a Zumba instructor
The shooting also claimed the life of a 33-year-old woman who has yet to be identified.
According to the police, the incident began unfolding at 11am on Tuesday, when cops and paramedics were dispatched to the 1400 block of Stonelake Cove Avenue for a report of gunshots and someone laying on the floor in a doorway of an apartment.
Officers arrived on scene to discover Diana Hawatmeh and the other woman dead from gunshot wounds, and Hawatmeh’s daughter injured.
Police found the suspected shooter, identified as 38-year-old Jason Neo Bourne, armed with a handgun and barricaded in a nearby vehicle, with Hawatmeh’s 12-year-old son being held as a hostage.
‘As officers attempted a de-escalation the situation, Bourne held his firearm to the juvenile’s head, resulting in an officer-involved shooting,’ a press release from the police stated.
Police removed the child from the car and attempted CPR, but he was pronounced dead at the scene along with Bourne.
Police say suspect Jason Neo Bourne, 38, took Diana Hawatmeh's 12-year-old son hostage inside a car. When he put a gun to the boy's head, officers opened fire. Joseph was pronounced dead at the scene
Officers pictured at the scene of a fatal shooting in front of an apartment complex in Henderson, Nevada, on Tuesday
When reached by phone on Thursday morning, a spokesperson for the police department declined to say whether it was Bourne who shot Joseph Hawatmeh, or a police officer.
The statement from the police noted that a preliminary investigation has determined that Bourne ‘fired multiple rounds inside the vehicle.’
Relatives and friends said Diana Hawatmeh and her family split their time between Sandy, Utah, and Henderson, Nevada.
According to police, Bourne was the family's neighbor and lived above their apartment in Hawatmeh. No motive was immediately available.
Diana worked as substitute teacher at Saint John the Baptist Middle School in Utah, where her son, known to his loved ones as JoJo, was a seventh-grader. She was also a Zumba instructor and entrepreneur, reported ABC4.
According to a letter the Skaggs Catholic Center community, where Diana was an active member, her husband and eldest son, Layth, were not involved in the shooting in Nevada.
Some 200 people gathered in Draper, Utah, on Wednesday for a prayer vigil honoring the slain members of the Hawatmeh family
At a vigil on Wednesday night in Draper, Utah, some 200 friends and members of the community mourned and prayed for the victims.
'She was one of a kind. She was special. She was graceful. She was elegant. She was kind, so kind,' Diana's close friend, Mary Ann Horn, told Fox 13.
Galey Colosimo, principal of Juan Diego Catholic High School, described the shooting that took the lives of Diana and Joseph Hawatmeh as a 'gut punch' and a 'tragedy of untold proportions.'
'She was a faith-filled woman, very much a family-oriented mother and wife,' he told Deseret News of the married mom-of-three, 'very vivacious, very fun loving and lots of energy, a beautiful woman.'
Felicia Frakes, a secretary at Saint John The Baptist Middle School, said Joseph liked the theater and participated in school plays, while his sister, who is a junior at Juan Diego Catholic High School, sang in the choir and played volleyball.
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