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KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) — The family of the Trenton, Missouri, police officer shot while transporting an inmate said she continues to improve.
Jasmine Diab’s family hasn’t left her side since the June 14 shooting in Daviess County.
Esam and Lori Diab told KCTV5 News that their daughter just celebrated her 25th birthday in the hospital and that she got to sit in a chair for the first time Monday and get a facial and massage.
Both parents want the public to know how grateful they are for the support shown to their daughter.
“We really would like to thank everybody, everybody for their kindness,” Esam said.
Both Esam and Lori called the outpouring of support incredible, noting that everyone from the Trenton Police Department, to the Missouri State Highway Patrol, to the Kansas City Missouri Police Department, including the police chief himself, have shown up in shifts around the clock rallying their fellow officer shot in the line of duty.
Diab was shot in the stomach, with the bullet traveling through her body, nicking the major artery in her left leg and lodging into her hip bone.
The officer and mother nearly bled to death from her injuries, and her parents have kept vigil over their daughter since.
“She’s daddy‘s girl,” Esam told KCTV5 News. “She always said ‘Only daddy, only daddy’ when she was little.”
When Officer Diab first came to, she asked her father for a pen to write a message.
“She said “I” and then a heart “you” and broke my heart,” he recalled.
What’s keeping Diab strong, her parents say, is the thought of her own little girl, 5-year-old Amira, with her mother saying that Diab has told them “I have to hold on. I have to live for her.”
Esam and Lori say that believe it or not, some good has come from the nightmare of the shooting. The officer and her family are Muslim, and her parents said that over the past couple of years people who may have normally kept any kind of hatred inside have started openly confronting them.
“There was before ugly people and racists, but they don’t come up,” Esam said. “Now they think they can.”
Esam said he has even had a gun pulled on him twice.
After 36 years, the family was considering leaving, but they said the shooting has brought out the best in people, people who’ve shown up to help and care for their daughter.
Something else that they said goes along with both Islam and Christianity is forgiveness, and Esam said the family has forgiven the man who shot Jasmine.
“God saved my daughter,” he explained. “And you know, we always ask God to forgive us and we expect him to forgive, but we cannot forgive each other, and that’s very sad.”
With their faith in humanity refreshed, the couple now says they’ll push forward, stronger than ever for their daughter.
Officer Diab will still have to endure more surgery, but her parents say she’s doing remarkably better.
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