Monday morning, she sobbed disconsolately as hearses rolled down the same driveway, taking away Ibrahim’s body and those of his daughters-in-law, whom police say he fatally shot at the house.
Armed with a handgun, Ibrahim allegedly also shot three other relatives there, including his son who later died at a hospital and the 3-year-old grandson who was hospitalized Monday.
“They were a loving family,” Weiters said. “This is unbelievable. We think he was sick. He must have been.”
Police said Ibrahim, 52, shot three people to death: his son, Mohammed Ibrahim, 28; the younger Ibrahim’s wife, Luna Tesfaye, 24; and another daughter-in-law, Hana Yusuf, 26. Police said he also wounded two others before killing himself.
Three-year-old Amir Abdulhakim was in stable condition at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston. He is the son of Yusuf and Yusef Ibrahim, 27, another son of the alleged shooter, who was in stable condition at Grady, Atlanta police spokesman Eric Schwartz said.
Neighbors and friends said the victims belonged to an extended family that had immigrated more than 10 years ago from the Oromo region of Ethiopia, a predominantly Muslim center of dissent against that country’s rulers.
Police confirmed only that Yusuf and Tesfaye were of Ethiopian descent.
Police said the alleged shooter’s daughter, a 26-year-old who was not identified, was in the house during the shooting but was unharmed, and his wife had left home shortly before the shooting.
The shooting began about 7 a.m. in a house about a half-mile east of Interstate 75, Schwartz said, in a modest neighborhood overshadowed by planes taking off from nearby Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Police said they had received no domestic violence calls from the house before responding to a “person shot” call Monday morning.
Weiters described Ibrahim as a retired factory worker, while others said he had worked in a hotel laundry.
Weiters said he had been hospitalized recently but had returned to delight the neighborhood children with small gifts of school supplies and disposable cameras.
His pale blue one-story home has a perfectly adorned yard with a closely cropped lawn, and Weiters said he was always on hand to help neighbors with their lawns – even though his shaky English made it difficult to communicate.
Records show Ibrahim had lived in Georgia at least since 1997, and he had bought the house in 1998 from Habitat for Humanity.
“They have been model members of the community – taking good care of their home and yard and helping neighbors,” said Atlanta Habitat for Humanity executive director Larrie Del Martin. “We could never have anticipated such an event; our prayers are with the surviving family members.”
