"Please capture this individual": Father of slain UC Davis student Karim Abou-Najm calls for justice
DAVIS — The grieving father of a UC Davis student who was stabbed to death in a city park is making a plea to the public.
His son, 20-year-old Karim Abou-Najm, was killed Saturday night as he was biking home from an academic awards ceremony in Davis.
"Please capture this individual," Majdi Abou-Najm said. "Let's bring closure to this as soon as we can."
Abou-Najm agreed to speak to reporters to shed light on his son's life, which was cut incredibly short.
"Karim was a bundle of energy," he said. "A free spirit, someone who wanted to see goodness around him."
He added, "This path that he took in his last journey home is the same path we do every day. I walk to my office at UC Davis and he bikes to his classes at UC Davis."
Davis Mayor Will Arnold is being updated on the investigation.
"The city is taking an all-hands-on-deck approach to this," Arnold said.
Together, Karim Abou-Najm's deadly stabbing and the stabbing death of David Breaux in Central Park three days earlier have shaken the Davis community.
Police have ramped up patrols across the city. Detectives are working overtime. The FBI and the Department of Justice are now involved in tracking down the killer or killers. Police say they have not identified a link between the two cases.
"We're dedicating absolutely every resource possible to solving these crimes, to getting to the bottom of it," the mayor said.
With his son suddenly gone, Abou-Najm now has a plea to catch his killer.
"He will always be with us. His spirit, his way of doing things will be with us until our last day," Abou-Najm said. "I just call on every person in a capacity to help to capture whoever did this, to please do so."
The UC Davis Police Department has added more Safe Ride vans to campus as a result of these deadly stabbings. Rides from campus into the city will now be available from 8 p.m. to 3 a.m. seven days a week, starting May 1.
"We just survive day one yesterday, and this will be how the rest of our lives will be," Abou-Najm said.
Karim's family has created an endowment fund in memory of him to help fund future research students. The fund can be found here.
