Phoenix mother thanks stranger who fatally shot her son during attack

A Phoenix woman is thankful to be alive after a neighbor came to her rescue and fatally shot her 29-year-old son as he was stabbing her in a meth-fueled rage.

Victoria Mendez had not see her son, Hakeem Shawky, for three months before the attack Sunday night, because he was suffering with a drug addiction, a local CBS affiliate reported.

She told the station that she said she was driving home from work around 10:30 p.m. Sunday when she saw her estranged son standing near the corner of 50th Drive and Windrose, 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?’” Ms. Mendez explained. “And he popped his head into my window and he says, ’I just want to give you a kiss, mama.’”

That’s when Shawky pulled out a box cutter and began stabbing her, Ms. Mendez said.

“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,” she told the station. “He grabbed within the wound itself that he had created with his bare hands and he started pulling at my esophagus.”

Ms. Mendez said she got out of the car as the attack continued. Her screams alerted a neighbor, whom she did not know, who confronted Shawky with a gun.

The neighbor yelled, “Stop or I’m going to shoot,” Ms. Mendez said, before firing one shot into Shawky. That shot didn’t stop him, so the neighbor fired again, killing Shawky, Ms. Mendez said.

The mourning mother told the CBS affiliate that she’s thankful the neighbor came to her rescue.

“There was nothing else you could have done,” Ms. 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 are not recommending that the neighbor, who was not identified, face any charges.

Ms. Mendez said she hopes her troubled son is finally at peace.

“My son is very gentle and he’s very loving, and he’s a good boy,” she told the station. “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.”