Every day, when Jamaluddin Rohani walks past his son's empty room inside their Kent home, the father of six said he feels something deep inside himself break.
But Rohani said he felt some relief Wednesday afternoon, after King County Superior Court Judge Nikole Hecklinger sentenced the Newcastle man who shot and killed Rohani's son outside a Renton Big 5 Sporting Goods store to nearly 22 years imprisonment.
A superior court jury in Kent's Maleng Regional Justice Center unanimously convicted Aaron Myers, 53, of second-degree assault and second-degree murder on May 8, 2026 — what would have been Hazrat Ali" Rohani's 19th birthday.
Jamaluddin Rohani moved his family from Afghanistan to the U.S. when his eldest child, Ali, was 8 years old, seeking a safer life. In Kent, he watched Ali bloom into a cheerful and polite son, and a role model to his younger siblings. Ali studied hard and dreamed of becoming a surgeon after graduating from Kent-Meridian High School.
Ali did not cross the stage at his school's graduation ceremony last year.
Instead, the teen's life ended June 5, 2024, about 30 seconds after Myers, a Newcastle resident and security guard, spotted Ali, his cousin and their friend walking through a parking lot with BB guns and assumed they were going to rob a Renton Big 5 Sporting Goods.
Myers, now 53, rushed out of his truck and toward the boys, pointing his gun at them and yelling commands. He grabbed Ali’s friend by his hair and forced him to the ground as Ali backed away with his hands raised. Myers then turned his gun on Ali and fired 10 times as the boy turned away, striking him seven times in his back.
Ali’s friend and cousin screamed as they watched him die on the pavement, crying out for his mother, according to court records.
Hecklinger said, after sentencing Myers, Ali had a right to live freely and safely, without being harassed by an armed civilian or having his “intentions presumed.”
“I considered 57 letters extolling your high moral character and virtue, and people who spoke on your behalf,” Hecklinger said to Myers. “It is extraordinarily unfortunate you did not reflect the characters and values that others saw in you.”
Hecklinger also sentenced Myers to three years of community custody and ordered him to not contact the families of Ali and the two other boys involved in the case.
Myers’ wife and Ali’s mother wept in their seats as Myers was led out of the courtroom, his own face stained with tears.
Jamaluddin Rohani embraced family members and friends gathered outside the courtroom after the sentencing.
"It’s very different for my family, but we will try to get a normal life,” he said. “We finally get the time to rest.”
Myers’ family, through defense attorney Mark Middaugh, declined to be interviewed.
Under Washington state sentencing guidelines, Myers faced up to 28 years in prison, including up to 20 years for the murder conviction and eight more for the firearm enhancements.
At trial, Middaugh argued Myers fired lawfully because he believed the boys’ BB guns were real handguns, and felt he had a duty to protect himself and others from “grave danger.”
King County senior deputy prosecuting attorney Elaine Lee argued Myers acted “purely on emotion” when he spotted the boys and immediately assumed they were criminals. Instead of calling 911, Myers kept escalating the situation, despite the boys complying with his commands and yelling that their BB guns were not real guns, Lee said.
After Myers' conviction, Middaugh requested that his client receive an eight-year prison sentence, arguing Myers' PTSD diagnosis was a mitigating circumstance meriting an exceptional sentence below the state’s standard range.
Lee called Middaugh’s request “extremely offensive,” saying it would only include the mandatory prison time for the firearm enhancements, but none for the murder or assault convictions.
On Wednesday, family and community members of Myers, Ali and his friend used their last opportunity to address Hecklinger before she made a sentencing decision.
Three of Myers’ friends described him as a kind and gentle person, who loves his wife and two children and has dedicated his life to helping others, including as a firefighter, paramedic and former member of the U.S. military.
Myers, sitting next to Middaugh in a red jumpsuit, cried while reading out loud a poem he said he wrote as a way to pray for Ali titled “June 5.”
“You went to heaven and I went to hell, your body in a grave and mine in a cell,” Myers said. “With both our families in grief and deep sorrow, may our souls now collude for a brighter tomorrow.”
In a letter read out loud by a friend, Jamaluddin Rohani said Ali’s bright future was needlessly cut short by “a reckless, armed man who had no other intention but to shoot and kill and harm.”
“I and our family have forgotten how to love. How to smile. How to have fun. How to live a life like everyone around us,” he wrote.
The father of the boy Myers assaulted said his son has never recovered from witnessing Ali's killing, and remains plagued with severe anxiety and grief. About two months after Ali died, the boy harmed himself, suffering a serious injury that required hospitalization, the boy’s father wrote in a letter read to Hecklinger by a victim advocate.
"As a father, seeing my son in this condition was one of the most painful moments of my life," he wrote. "We never heard a single word of apology."
Shoaib Tareen, an Afghan American Community of Washington board member, said the murder and assault by Myers have made their community, and all immigrant families in the state, feel less safe. Hecklinger’s sentencing decision, Tareen said, would hopefully tell them that our children matter, and that the law protects them the same as everyone else.”
“Our children should be able to walk into a store and come back safe,” Tareen said. “No man with a gun would be able to decide on his own that a boy is dangerous.”
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