Victoria Mendez was driving home from work at around 10:30 p.m. Sunday night when she saw her estranged son standing near the corner, just down the street from her house on the northern Glendale-Phoenix border.
“I rolled my passenger window down and I said, ‘Hey Hakeem, what’s up? How are you doing?'” she explained. “And he popped his head into my window and he says, ‘I just want to give you a kiss, mama.'”
Mendez, who hadn’t seen Hakeem Shawky in nearly three months because of his drug addiction, leans toward him while Hakeem pulled out a box cutter.
Mendez continued to tell KPHO/KTVK the heartbreaking story.
“And then he proceeded to get into the car and started stabbing me and slashing at my throat, telling me that he was going to kill me,” Mendez said through her tears. “He grabbed within the wound itself that he had created with his bare hands and he started pulling at my esophagus.”
A neighbor heard Mendez screaming for ran to solicit help from another neighbor who grabbed his handgun and ran to assist her.
“He (neighbor) said, ‘Stop or I’m going to shoot,'” she recalled. “He (Shawky) wouldn’t stop. He (neighbor) shot him once. It didn’t even phase him, he (Shawky) was so high on drugs. And the second shot I heard, he (Shawky) went down and I was no longer being cut.” Reported KPHO/KTVK.
Police say Shawky was declared dead at the scene.
Mendez is clearly mourning the loss of a son, but insists that it was not at the hands of her good neighbor.
“There was nothing else you could have done,” Mendez said she wants her neighbor to know. “And as sad as I am to lose my boy, you did the right thing. And I thank you for my life.”
Phoenix police, at the time of the reporting, were investigating the matter but are not recommending the Good Samaritan face any charges.
Mendez hopes that her son, who struggled with addiction for more than 15 years, is finally at peace.
“My son is very gentle and he’s very loving, and he’s a good boy,” Mendez said about her memories of Shawky. “But that thing wasn’t him. I don’t think parents understand what they’re dealing with. It’s a very, very dangerous business. Crystal meth is stealing our kids and turning them into murderers.”
Victoria Mendez was released from the hospital Monday evening.
