Shooting victim seeking answers after trial dismissal against son who shot him
While holding his Bible, 64-year-old Sabir shares his story."This is the blood, the only blood I was seeing after I came home," Sabir said. He was shot in the head back in February of 2021. "So now, I'm blind on one side. The bullet, still in my head, and it leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth," Sabir said. And he says he knows the shooter. "I was shot by my son. I don't know why," Sabir said. The suspect was charged with first-degree assault back in 2021. The charge carries up to 50 years in prison, if convicted. The suspect never went to trial, and Sabir's spent the last four years wondering why. He said that's why he called KETV Investigates. "Finally, somebody is listening to me. Finally, somebody hears me. Finally, somebody is going to help me to get answers," Sabir said. He points the finger at the prosecutor's office. "I see Donald Kleine on the television a lot. 'Well, I'm going to do this. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do this. I'm looking to do that.' Well, what happened?" Sabir said. KETV went to the Douglas County Attorney's Office to find those answers. "I don't disagree with him. This should not have happened," Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine said. Kleine said the defendant got off on a technicality. Basically, a paperwork mistake that Kleine said all came apart when a trial date was set. "We rely on the judges; we don't set their calendar," Kleine said. "They set their own calendar." According to court records, the trial was initially set for Oct. 18, but district court judge Honorable Marlon Polk had another trial that would overlap. Polk moved the new trial date to Valentine's Day 2022, a date that would fall four months outside the six-month window for a speedy trial. "But the way the record was made was not good enough, and so we should have caught that and we didn't," Kleine said. The case made its way all to the Nebraska Supreme Court. The high court ruled emails and statements of unavailability were "insufficient to show docket congestion existed" or that there was "good cause" to continue the jury trial past that six-month speedy trial window. Now, because of the law, the defendant cannot be tried again. "It makes me feel like I've been victimized twice," Sabir said. Kleine said he wants to make sure this never happens again. "It should bother everybody that's involved in this side of the business that this is not the way things should happen, and so, it's a problem, a big problem because it caused dismissal of the case," Kleine said. Sabir told KETV he is looking at possibly filing a lawsuit in order to get some justice in his case.
