Police: Man shot by officers in Henderson held gun to boy’s head
A man shot by officers Tuesday was holding a gun to a 12-year-old boy’s head inside a parked car after shooting two women and a 16-year-old girl, according to new details released Wednesday night by the Henderson Police Department.
Officers were called at 11 a.m. to The Douglas at Stonelake Apartments, 1445 Stonelake Cove Ave., after a resident reported hearing gunshots. Officers found two women, ages 33 and 39, dead from gunshot wounds and a 16-year-old girl injured from a gunshot wound, police said in a statement.
Police found the shooter, 38-year-old Jason Bourne, inside a car nearby with a 12-year-old boy he was holding hostage, police said.
“As officers attempted a de-escalation dialogue with the suspect, the suspect held his firearm to the juvenile’s head, resulting in an officer-involved shooting,” police said.
The boy and Bourne died at the scene.
The 16-year-old girl was taken to a hospital and was in stable condition.
“Preliminary investigation revealed the suspect fired multiple round inside the vehicle, and additional information suggests the suspect resided in the apartment above the decedents,” police said.
A Utah church identified three of the people who were shot as Diana Hawatmeh and her children Joseph and Yasmeen. The family is part of the St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Draper.
“Diana was a substitute teacher in our elementary and middle school and taught Zumba dance to members of our faculty,” according to a Facebook post from the church, which also said the boy attended the church’s middle school.
Boy pulled from car
Neighbor Justin Mickanen, 27, told the Review-Journal on Wednesday that he watched the events surrounding the shooting, which happened in the complex’s parking lot, from his first-floor window. He saw police surround a car with a man inside, and after gunfire rang out, police pulled “what looks like a young boy” from the car.
Mickanen said the commotion started shortly after 11 a.m., when he heard police sirens, looked out his window and saw a distressed woman outside speaking in Spanish. The only word he could make out was “ninos,” which translates to “children.”
He watched as police searched the parking lot, and a few minutes later a group of officers converged on a black Cadillac Escalade near his apartment, the 27-year-old said.
He said the vehicle’s brake lights were on, and he could see a man sitting in the driver’s seat.
“I hear (officers) shouting loud commands at the car; I don’t know what they were saying because my windows were closed,” Mickanen said.
“Whoever’s driving the car isn’t listening to whatever they’re saying.”
He said the driver was “pointing his right hand toward the passenger seat.” Mickanen feared the situation would turn into a “shootout,” so he ducked for cover in his kitchen.
Then gunfire rang out.
Mickanen walked back to his window after the shooting and saw police struggling to get into the the vehicle’s front passenger seat. They pulled the child out of the car and started performing CPR.
Police ended up taking the child away from the car and lying him on the ground “within 15 feet” of Mickanen’s bedroom window, he said. Multiple officers were “panicking” and trying to treat the child, but eventually they stopped.
Neighbors on Wednesday, including Mickanen and Parisa Afghani, said they didn’t know if the man opened fire before police did.
“(Police) said, ‘Get the f------ kid out’ after they already shot” at the car, Afghani told the Review-Journal, describing watching the shooting from another building’s balcony.
Mickanen said police also pulled the man from the car and tried to give him CPR until “they realize he’s dead, (and) they leave the body there.”
Apartment breached
Officers then began pointing guns at an apartment above Mickanen’s first-floor home. SWAT vehicles arrived about 15 minutes later, and Mickanen said he could feel what he believed were flash-bang grenades as officers broke into another apartment. After police entered the apartment, Mickanen said, he didn’t hear anything “active.”
An apartment on the building’s third floor was boarded up with plywood on Wednesday afternoon, and men in white safety equipment were seen power-washing the pavement around the building.
Later in the day, Mickanen left his apartment and saw a trail of blood going up the building’s staircase, and what looked like bloody footprints.
“That’s when I first finally realized, oh, there was some sort of bloody incident before everything I saw,” he said.
The Clark County coroner’s office will identify those killed, along with their causes and manners of death.
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Contact Sabrina Schnur at sschnur@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0278. Follow @sabrina_schnur on Twitter. Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.
