Jurors convicted Noureddine Dib after prosecutors said video showed the victim fleeing.
PORTLAND, Ore. — A Multnomah County jury rejected a father’s self-defense claim and convicted him of attempted murder for shooting another parent outside a Portland school during pickup.
Noureddine Dib, 43, was sentenced May 7 to 12 years in prison for the Oct. 17, 2024, shooting of Michael Zakarneh at the Islamic School of Portland. Dib’s lawyers said he acted after repeated harassment and aggressive conduct. Prosecutors said the evidence showed something else: Zakarneh was trying to get away when Dib kept firing on school property.
The trial centered on the difference between a threat and a pursuit. The defense said Zakarneh had confronted Dib before, mocked him and behaved aggressively. Dib called 911 after the shooting and said he was a peaceful person but that Zakarneh kept harassing him. Prosecutors used the same call to make a different point. They told jurors Dib did not clearly say he feared for his life when he fired. They also relied on surveillance footage that they said showed Zakarneh running from Dib after being shot.
Prosecutors said the two men had several earlier encounters connected to school pickup. One dispute involved Dib’s complaint about Zakarneh’s driving in the pickup and drop-off area. The men attended the same mosque but had only recently met. Deputy District Attorney Eric Palmer said their history included rude and disrespectful moments, but he told reporters the shooting still had to be judged by the evidence from that afternoon. The state said Zakarneh tried to calm the situation before Dib pulled a gun.
The shooting happened in a tight parking lot at the Islamic School of Portland. Both men were there to pick up children. According to the prosecution account, Zakarneh approached Dib and spoke to him. A police affidavit described Dib warning Zakarneh that he would show him something if he did not move away. Zakarneh said they were only talking, according to the affidavit cited in local reporting. Dib then shot Zakarneh in the abdomen, prosecutors said. After the first shot, Zakarneh ran. Prosecutors said Dib continued after him and fired toward him at least once more. Zakarneh jumped down a flight of stairs toward the school, breaking bones in his right ankle as he escaped. He reached a nearby gas station, where bystanders helped him and called 911. Dib went into the school building before police arrested him without incident. Officials have not reported that any student was hit by gunfire, but prosecutors emphasized that the shooting happened shortly before students were to be released.
The jury found Dib guilty after roughly 12 hours of deliberation. The convictions included attempted murder, assault in the first degree, assault in the second degree, unlawful use of a weapon, reckless endangerment and discharging a firearm. The verdict showed that jurors accepted the prosecution’s account over the defense argument that Dib fired to protect himself. The district attorney’s office later said the sentence was longer than the 7.5-year minimum because the circumstances made the case more serious.
Deputy District Attorney Stephany Mgbadigha told jurors during opening statements that Dib took a loaded firearm to his children’s school. That framing stayed with the case through sentencing. Palmer said after the hearing that the punishment addressed both Zakarneh’s injuries and the danger created at a school. He said he remained focused on Zakarneh and his family, who had lived with fear and anxiety since the attack. The prosecution also thanked Detectives Sara Clark and Laurent Bonczijk for their work. Zakarneh’s family described him as a kind and social man who loved making people laugh. His daughter, Amineh Zakarneh, said in earlier local interviews that he had gone to pick up her siblings and tried to talk before the shooting. She said the attack was devastating because it happened in a community space where families expected safety. Her comments gave the public one of the clearest accounts of how the shooting affected the family beyond the charges and verdict.
The sentence came more than 18 months after the shooting and about two weeks after the conviction. Prosecutors said the case involved not just a single gunshot but a chase, at least one additional shot, a broken ankle and gunfire near a school. The defense position, as described in court coverage, was that Dib had faced prior threats and acted in fear. The jury’s verdict and the judge’s sentence left the prosecution’s version as the controlling legal outcome.
Currently, any challenge to the verdict or sentence would proceed through later court filings. For now, the record shows a 12-year prison term for a shooting that began with a parent dispute and ended with a wounded father fleeing for help.
Author note: Last updated May 17, 2026.