Nearly two months after Azim and Mobeen Hakeem were shot and killed inside their downtown Evanston business, their mother and sister say they are no closer to understanding who would want to hurt the unassuming brothers.
Frustrated with the Evanston Police Department, the family is considering hiring a private investigator to get to the bottom of the mysterious slayings. The brothers were found dead with multiple gunshot wounds the night of July 30 in the basement of Evanston Pipe & Tobacco, 923 Davis St.
In an hourlong interview Monday morning, Farheen and Mahjabeen Hakeem said they are growing impatient with EPD’s investigation and weighing how to put more pressure on a police force they described as insensitive and unresponsive.
“They find nothing,” said Mahjabeen Hakeem, the brothers’ mother. “We don’t know anything.”
EPD has defended the lack of public information surrounding the investigation, saying it could jeopardize any potential charges.
“The police department is always very concerned about relatives and close friends of crime victims,” Cmdr. Jay Parrott said in an email to The Daily on Monday afternoon. “We just ask for the public’s understanding and patience when dealing with this difficult task of investigating a violent crime of this type.”
Parrott added that detectives usually reach out to family members every week. He said detectives met with the brothers’ family last week to return some property.
Parrott said detectives are “working on leads” and forensics testing of evidence. Mahjabeen and Farheen Hakeem said detectives told them the process could take six months to a year.
Despite the department’s assurances, the Hakeems remain dissatisfied with how police have handled the investigation. Farheen Hakeem said she is preparing to file a complaint against the department, citing its “apathetic” attitude toward her family, among other factors.
To make matters worse, she said EPD often responds with offers of counseling services when she asks about the investigation.
“As much therapy as we get, it’s not going to answer our questions,” Farheen Hakeem said. “You can’t therapy yourself out of personal curiosity.”
Farheen Hakeem’s main concern, though, lies with what she says a detective told her the morning after her brothers were found dead.
“They said they never have seen anything like this,” Farheen Hakeem said. “And that really disturbed me.”
Farheen and Mahjabeen Hakeem remembered the brothers as family men who loved to go to the movies, often inviting their mother along when she was available. They took over the shop several years ago after their disabled father had an operation.
“They just stick to themselves,” Farheen Hakeem said.
She added it would require a “special kind of evil” to hurt Mobeen Hakeem, who was autistic.
The brothers did not hold grudges, their sister said. She remembered them as the “type to forgive their bullies,” shaking hands with them onstage at their high school graduation.
Despite their similar ages, Mahjabeen Hakeem said her sons avoided conflict, even as children.
“They never fought with each other,” she said. “‘I want this, I want that’ — no, not them.”
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @PatrickSvitek
