PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) — A daughter is speaking out after her father was shot outside a school.
The shooting happened Thursday outside the Islamic School of Portland on Southwest Capitol Highway.
The victim is still recovering in the hospital while the suspected shooter faces attempted murder charges.
Despite being nervous, Amineh Zakarneh stepped in front of news cameras and shared what led up to her father being shot while waiting to pick up her siblings from school.
“He’s just everything you would want in a father and for that to be almost taken away from me and my siblings and my family is absolutely gut-wrenching,” expressed Zakarneh.
She said days before the shooting, her father, Michael Zakarneh, was picking up his children from school.
“The perpetrator had flipped off my father in front of my little siblings and my brother, one of my little siblings in the car, he was in shock,” she added.
She was not at the scene of the shooting, but Zakarneh was told by family members that her father approached the suspect to try and talk about the gesture, but the suspect began yelling at her father.
“He said he just wanted to talk and then all of a sudden the man pulled out the gun and shot him,” Zakarneh added.
Police said the victim ran to a nearby gas station for help before he was taken to the hospital for a gunshot wound.
Zakarnah frantically began texting and calling her dad when he did not return home.
“So, I went over there. I could not get into the school. There was a police car blocking off the road and I was just freaking out,” she added.
She eventually picked up her siblings.
Police said the suspect went into the school before he exited and surrendered to police. Authorities later found a gun.
Police identified 42-year-old Noureddine Dib of Beaverton as the suspect.
On Friday, he pleaded “not guilty” to multiple charges including attempted murder, assault, and “unlawful use of a weapon.”
His next court date is October 28th.
The incident stunned the community Zakarneh said values love and respect.
“This is not something that frequently happens in Muslim communities This is not something that has happened before in any Muslim community that I’ve been a part of or that my family has been a part,” Zakarneh told news reporters. “The mosque is supposed to be a safe haven. The mosque is supposed to be a place where you feel like you belong, where you feel like you are respected and loved, and for that to be disrupted in this way just creates more divide and that is the direct opposite of what our religion calls for.”