Just hours after learning of his son’s death, as Khamisa lay helpless on the ground, he had an epiphany.
A message came from a higher power, he said.
“There were casualties at both ends of the gun,” Khamisa said. “Sometimes during deep trauma or tragedy you feel a spark of clarity.”
And so Azim Khamisa did what most people wouldn’t even attempt: he found a way to forgive – and later befriend – his child’s killer.
Khamisa – who practices meditation and Sufism, a mystical religious practice within Islam – felt that although Hicks had committed a hideous act, he was not single-handedly responsible for Tariq’s death.
“It is not a 14-year-old who is the enemy who killed my son, it is the forces of society that are the cause,” Khamisa said. “The real culprit is we haven’t understood why young people are falling through the cracks and getting involved in gangs, drugs and alcohol, and we’re losing so many children.”
Khamisa is on a mission to change that.
Nine months after her son’s death, Khamisa established the Tariq Khamisa Foundation to help create safer schools and communities and prevent teenagers from turning to crime. It was a way to honor her son’s legacy and give more meaning to his short life.
“I didn’t want to go through life with anger, hatred and resentment. Because if you stay like this, who are you hurting? Yourself,” Khamisa said. “Forgiveness can create peace. …We need to move away from this punitive mentality and become restorative.”
Khamisa described her son as “an old soul in a young body with a great sense of humor” and said he wanted to become a photographer. He was 20 years old and engaged.
Seven years after his death, Tariq’s fiancée, Jennifer, committed suicide.
“She was never able to bounce back,” Khamisa said.
Khamisa’s plan to pardon Hicks was put into motion a few months after the shooting when he met with Hicks’ grandfather, Ples Felix, in Hicks’ defense attorney’s office. Khamisa asked Felix to help him carry out his mission through the Tariq Khamisa Foundation. Felix was on board.
Over the past 28 years, these two unlikely men have spoken at hundreds of assemblies and school events, as well as in prisons. In various forums, they told the tragic story that linked them.
“I believe we all have to, at some point, learn to forgive,” Khamisa said. “If we had enough people who were forgiving, it would change society. »
Khamisa also sought contact with Hicks shortly after the murder to forgive him face to face.
Hicks, then an eighth grader, became the youngest person in California to be tried as an adult and was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. Initially, when Khamisa asked to meet him and express his forgiveness, Hicks refused.
“It wasn’t something I wasn’t comfortable with, but it was something I knew had to be done at some point,” said Hicks, now 43 years. “I didn’t think I deserved to be forgiven for what I had done.”
Hicks struggled to manage his emotions, he said. He felt numb.
“Prison, a lot of times, is not conducive to these emotional revelations about your life,” he said.
Five years after the shooting, Hicks felt ready to meet Khamisa. He sat across from him at the state prison in Folsom, California, and they talked for six hours.
“It was one of the hardest conversations I’ve ever had to have with anyone,” Hicks said, adding that Khamisa asked him about the night he murdered his son — and about the circumstances that led him to pull the trigger.
Hicks’ mother gave birth to her when she was 14 years old. His father was not in his life.
“I come from what would be considered a gang background,” said Hicks, who joined a gang in sixth grade. “The majority of my family members were involved in gangs. »
Hicks’ mother sent him to live with his grandfather when he was 9, and “sending me away made me feel abandoned,” he said.
The day Hicks killed Tariq, he had run away from his grandfather’s house in San Diego. Her grandfather was strict, which was a difficult transition from her mother’s more hands-off approach to parenting.
“What was going through my head was a lot of pain and anger,” Hicks said. “I was focused on maintaining the last family relationships I felt like I had in my life; they were my friends from back then and the guys I raced with.
When other gang members urged him to pull the trigger that night, “I didn’t think twice about it,” he said.
As Hicks spoke, Khamisa said he felt a connection to him.
“I look into his eyes, and he held my gaze for what seemed like an uncomfortable moment,” Khamisa said. “I was able to climb through his eyes and touch his humanity.”
At the end of their discussion, Khamisa told Hicks that he forgave him. He also encouraged him to participate in the Tariq Khamisa Foundation upon his release.
“Forgiveness can be very liberating,” Khamisa said, explaining that when he left the prison that day, he felt significantly lighter.
Hicks said he also felt lighter.
“No adult in my life has talked about forgiveness that way,” he said. “Azim’s ability to forgive myself gave me the space to begin to forgive myself and the people in my life who have hurt me.”
Hicks said his self-examination was slow and painful.
While incarcerated, Hicks remained in contact with Khamisa. And after a while, Khamisa’s daughter also contacted Hicks.
It took her 20 years of struggling with the agony of losing her brother, but like her father, Tasreen Khamisa came to understand that Tariq was not the only victim of the shooting.
Soon, Tasreen Khamisa, 51, began having weekly calls with Hicks while he was in prison. “I felt a strong responsibility to ensure that Tony would also have the opportunity to heal and find his purpose,” she said.
Hicks’ grandfather and the Khamisas became his support during his incarceration. They spent years lobbying for his release.
“My attitude towards the commissioner was: Tony has work to do, and that work is not behind bars,” Azim Khamisa said. “The commissioner was very touched that the victim’s father and sister pleaded for the offender’s release. »
After 24 years in prison, Hicks was paroled and released in 2019 at age 38.
“It was an incredible result,” said Azim Khamisa.
Since his release, Hicks – who has developed a stronger relationship with both of his parents in recent years – has served on the board of directors of the Tariq Khamisa Foundation and he speaks at conferences and schools about his life story . He encourages students to avoid the path he took and reminds them that they can change the course of their lives.
Hicks is also a plumber and he said he is rebuilding his life.
“It’s been a very slow process,” he said. “I have been doing very well over the past five years.”
This is largely due to the Khamisas, whom he considers family.
“Family isn’t always about blood,” Hicks said.
The Khamisas say Hicks became an important member of their family.
“I see him as a son,” Azim Khamisa said.
“I feel like he is my soul brother,” said Tasreen Khamisa, executive director of the Tariq Khamisa Foundation.
Azim Khamisa often places a photo of Tariq in front of him while he dines. He lights a candle next to his son.
“I talk to him and he responds,” Azim Khamisa said.
Tariq tells him that he is proud of his decision to forgive and that it has inspired others to do the same.
“I know that in the future, Tariq and Tony will meet hand in hand,” Azim Khamisa said.
