"I Lived Next Door To One Of The Garland Terrorists"
CBS 11's JD Miles recalls living next door to one of the two men who was killed during their attack at an Mohammed cartoon art exhibit in Garland.
We called him Nicky. I remember him as an always smiling, energetic 3-year-old boy who would run into our house on Travis Drive without warning, but never unwelcome by my parents.
He was an infant when his mom and dad moved next door to my family into a modest, but new West Plano subdivision in 1981. I can still picture the crooked letters spelling "Soofi" on their mailbox. It sounded like goofy and they were the first family I ever met from Afghanistan, even though Mrs. Soofi was a young Caucasian American.
I was about 15 and too old to play with a child Nicky's age but his mom would come over and visit with mine often. So when Nicky was around, I would show him a mouse in the open field near the power lines behind our homes or let him try to bounce a basketball around the goal I had in the backyard driveway. There were many days like that, and I still have memories of them.
His father was a stout, dark haired and bearded man with eyes and an expression that could seem menacing. But he was very polite and cordial when I would see him talking to my father in our front yards, usually leaning on rakes or shovels.
His wife would come over for what appeared to be serious conversations with mom, and I remember hearing that she was struggling to meet the demands of a Muslim wife and concerns about possibly moving overseas. She called her son Nicky, while her husband always used his given name Nadir, sometimes yelling it when he would run in unannounced through our open sliding glass door.
I didn't think much about them after they moved out in the mid 80s, and I thought my lasting image of Nicky would be as an adorable, carefree child with his whole life ahead of him.
That was until Monday when I heard one of the gunman involved in the attempted terror attack was named Soofi. I assumed it was a common Middle Eastern name. But later, as I was working on a news story for 10 pm that included an interview with his mother who lives near Houston, I saw a face on a video monitor that I locked onto and froze. This was Sharon Soofi plus 30 years and her son Nadir was 34 years old! Oh my God, it can't be! This was a boy I knew and once held. How could he become a terrorist?
I'm not sympathetic in the least, and neither is his mother, if you watch her interview.
To me, it's a sad, chilling, deeply personal reminder of the world we live in.
This was not the stereotypical blood thirsty savage from another part of the world.
The man who drove up to a Garland community center with an arsenal and wearing body armor on a mission to kill was once my neighbor.
His despicable actions as an adult will always be at odds in my heart and mind with the sweet child I once knew.