Three family members killed, three injured in Northern Shouneh shooting

AMMAN — Three siblings were killed and three other family members were injured on Thursday, when a man reportedly entered their home in Northern Shouneh and starting shooting the entire family, official sources said.

The suspect reportedly entered the family’s home at around 4:00am Thursday and “opened fire from a gun he was carrying, killing two brothers, aged 15 and 32, and their 32-year-old sister”, a senior official source said.

“The suspect then proceeded to other sections of the house where he fired at the parents and their son before fleeing,” the senior official source told The Jordan Times, adding that the father, mother and their son survived the shooting spree, while the three other siblings died before reaching hospital.

“The injured were rushed to a nearby hospital where they were listed in fair condition, while the bodies of the dead were taken to the Salt National Institute of Forensic Medicine for a government autopsy,” the official source added.

A senior judicial source told The Jordan Times that the prosecution office at the Criminal Court’s general attorney’s office has been notified of the incident, noting that “the criminal court prosecutor supervised the postmortem performed on the three victims and visited the crime scene”.

The three victims were shot at close range and their injuries were focused in the head and chest, according to the judicial source, who added that the autopsy indicated some traces of resistance on body parts of two of the three victims.

Initial questioning of the shooting survivors indicated that “the suspect, who had a previous criminal record, had old feuds with one of the brothers who died”, the judicial source said, adding that “the suspect and one of the victims had issues that were almost a year-old and it was renewed two days ago. They are assuming that this was the cause of the deadly shooting”. 

Meanwhile, Police Spokesperson Lt. Col. Amer Sartawi said the identity of the suspect is known to authorities.

“We have issued an all-points bulletin with the suspect’s details to all our units in the area and surrounding towns,” Sartawi told The Jordan Times.