CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga. — A mother says her son just graduated from high school a month ago and had plans for the future. Now, 18-year-old Hakim Al-Nas is dead after an officer shot him while responding to a suspicious person call.
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Al-Nas’s mother says his death has devastated her family.
“It has broken us,” Chanteris Durham told Channel 2s Tom Jones.
She says her son was looking forward to all the world had to offer.
“He was happy to graduate. He was happy to have his own independence,” Durham explained.
Then Monday evening around 4:30 p.m. it all came to an end. That’s when Clayton County police say they arrived at a vacant home on Chippewa Drive on a suspicious person call.
Police Chief Kevin Roberts says as officers worked to detain three of the four teens in the back of the house, an armed Hakim made a threatening move.
“The officer perceived that that suspect was moving toward the officers who were also in the rear removing another suspect from the vacant residence.”
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The officer shot and killed Hakim. Three others were taken into custody.
“The fence went like (this),” neighbor Rodrecus Hancock showed Jones, as he shook the fence that separates his home from the home where the shooting took place.
Hancock says he watched the entire incident unfold. He believes that the rattling of the fence was Hakim trying to get away.
“If you coming towards the officer why would you hear this fence?” he asked.
Hakim’s mother didn’t want to discuss what happened. But says she needs the truth about her son’s last moments.
“I definitely want answers for my family. For my sons.”
Durham says she communicated with her son 30 minutes before he was killed.
“He had texted me and just told me that he was going pick up one of his friends, That was the last communication.”
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The Georgia Bureau of Investigation initially said the four teens were outside of the home when police arrived. They now say two of them were climbing out of the back window, while two remained inside.
Jones is still trying to clear up why the GBI said Hakim was running away, while police said he was coming toward them.
The GBI will investigate this case and then forward their results to the Clayton County district attorney for her review.
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