Chai Soua Vang |
|
| Background information | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Chai Soua Vang |
| Occupation | Truck driver |
| Born | September 24, 1968 Laos |
| Penalty | Six consecutive life terms plus seventy years |
| Killings | |
| Date | November 21, 2004 |
| Location(s) | Meteor, Wisconsin, United States |
| Killed | 6 |
| Injured | 2 |
| Weapon(s) | 7.62x39 caliber Saiga rifle |
Chai Soua Vang (born September 24, 1968) is a naturalized U.S. citizen and a Hmong immigrant from Laos. While on a hunting trip in northern Wisconsin, Vang shot eight people, who were also hunting in the area, on November 21, 2004. Six were killed and two were left wounded.
According to court proceedings prior to his conviction, Vang acknowledged shooting the people, including one woman, but challenged the chain of events that caused a dispute over a deer stand to become violent and escalate into multiple deaths. Vang, who lived in Saint Paul, Minnesota at the time of the shootings, is currently being held at Iowa State Penitentiary.
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Chai Vang is the father of six children, a family shaman,[1] and a hunting enthusiast. Vang and his brothers came to the United States from Laos in 1980 and initially settled in California. Chai Vang lived in Sacramento and eventually enlisted in the California National Guard.
Vang moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota sometime around 2000. A few years later, he and his family moved a few miles to the neighboring city of St. Paul. Both the Minneapolis and St. Paul police departments have records of several calls about domestic violence at the Vang residences during this time.
On the weekend of the shootings, Vang went out deer hunting with two friends and their two sons in northwest Wisconsin, a region where deer hunting is particularly popular, east of Birchwood, Wisconsin around the town of Meteor. Meteor extends over a large sparsely populated area. The land in the area is a mix of public and private. It is believed that Vang and his friends began their day on public land, but he later went onto a private 400 acre (1.6 km²) tract of land.
On Sunday, November 21, a hunting party of about 15 people were in a cabin on this private land. Terry Willers, one of the two co-owners of the land, left the cabin and saw Vang sitting in a deer stand. He used a handheld radio to ask the people still in the cabin whether or not anyone should be in the stand. Upon receiving a response in the negative, he began to approach Vang and called to him to leave the private land. After asking for directions, Vang proceeded to walk away towards a trail through a forested area of the property. At that point five of the hunters from the cabin who had heard the radio message arrived on ATVs. Robert Crotteau, the other co-owner, reportedly implied that Vang should be reported to the Department of Natural Resources for trespassing and suggested making a note of his hunting license number. Terry Willers wrote the number in the dust on one of the ATVs.
The events after the confrontation are disputed. A violent altercation broke out and four of the eight victims were shot in the back, and three of these four were hit by multiple rounds. Vang is believed to have fired about 20 rounds from a Saiga rifle chambered in 7.62x39. One of the wounded hunters died the next day, bringing the toll to six dead and two wounded.
Vang was apprehended about five hours after the shootings and was placed in custody of the Sawyer County Jail on November 24, 2004. His bail was set at $2.5 million.
The victims were part of a group of about 15 people who made an annual opening-weekend trip to the Crotteau-Willers property. Among those killed were father and son Robert and Joey Crotteau and Willers' daughter Jessica Willers.
Those who were killed:
Those who were wounded:
There have been conflicting reports about what may have led to the shootings. According to subsequent oral statements by Vang, one of the local hunters, Terry Willers, took the first shot at him from about 100 feet (30 m) away, and therefore the shootings were in self-defense. No shell casing was ever recovered from Willers' gun even though during the trial Hesebeck admitted to firing a single shot later during the incident when Vang, noticing that Hesebeck was still alive, fired at him again. Hesebeck testified no shot was fired before Vang started shooting. Additional forensic analysis of Willers' gun was not performed by the local law enforcement. The statements of both Vang and Hesebeck state that Vang removed the scope from his rifle before firing his first shot. Vang claimed race was a factor, alleging that during the verbal dispute, some of the local hunters yelled out racial slurs at him such as "chink" and "gook". On the stand Hesebeck admitted Robert Crotteau had called Vang a 'Hmong a--hole.' Hesebeck also admitted that he told law enforcement that Robert Crotteau had had problems with trespassers in the past, specifically citing Hmong hunters, who often travel to Wisconsin from Minnesota to hunt. The term "Mud Duck" is often used in Western Wisconsin to refer to Minnesota residents, similar to "Cheesehead" being used to describe Wisconsin residents. Willers used this term to describe Chai Vang when he radioed back to the cabin. The term has no racial connotation, although the defense claimed it did. It is unknown how Willers and the others knew that Vang was from Minnesota.
The criminal complaint states that Vang shot four of the victims in the back, and Vang himself admits he shot one victim in the back. He also shot many of the victims multiple times. The prosecution made use of these facts in arguing against the claim of self-defense.
The trial of Chai Soua Vang began Saturday, September 10, 2005 in Sawyer County Courthouse. Fourteen jurors (ten women and four men) were selected from Dane County, Wisconsin, and bused about 280 miles (450 km) northwest to Sawyer County, where they were sequestered.
Vang told the jury he feared for his life and began firing only after another hunter's shot nearly hit him. He detailed for jurors how the other hunters approached him, and how he responded by shooting at each one. He says he shot two of the victims in the back because they were "disrespectful". He recounted with clarity how he killed each victim. While saying on the stand, "(he wished) it wasn't happening," Chai Soua Vang contended that three of the hunters deserved to die:
"Did Mr. Crotteau deserve to die?" Wisconsin Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager asked.
"Yes," Chai Soua Vang replied.
Vang further testified that Joseph Crotteau deserved to die "because he accused me of giving him the finger and tried to cut in front of me to stop me from leaving." And Laski deserved to die because he had a gun, he said.[2], Vang re-enacted his deeds while on the stand, using his hands and arms to imitate the motions of firing a rifle. Vang's lawyers commented that some of his abnormal remarks were possibly due to the language barrier. Therefore, when Vang responded affirmatively to the question that Mr. Crotteau and Mr. Laski "deserved to die," his meaning implied that the men contributed to the circumstances that led to their deaths.
During the trial, it was revealed that the Crotteau and Laski families verbally harassed Vang with derogatory racial slurs, repeatedly blocked his path with an ATV several times as he was trying to leave (while shouting racial slurs), and pointed the gun at him. At which point, Vang ducked and was shot at before he shot back in what was argued by the defense as self-defense. [citation needed]
On September 16, 2005, Chai Soua Vang was found guilty of all six charges of first degree intentional homicide and two charges of attempted homicide by a jury of eight women and four men. On November 8, 2005, he was sentenced to six consecutive life terms plus seventy years (forty for two counts of attempted homicide plus five additional years for each count of homicide in the first degree). At the time, Wisconsin was one of 12 states in the U.S. that did not have the death penalty.
The Hmong community in the Midwest has faced intense discrimination. Even prior to the shooting, Hmong hunters were regularly told by white hunters that they were "trespassing" on public property because the white hunters did not want them around. This trespassing warning was often followed by racist-derogatory verbal harassment and physical displays of danger (gun flashing, firing). Furthermore, the All white-jury refused to acknowledge the racial tension surrounding the hunting sport.
The shooting and subsequent trial attracted nationwide attention. It has been reported that some Hmong people, like some other Americans, do not fully understand American law regarding hunting. In their homeland, the Hmong had a different hunting culture, and most lands were government-owned and therefore open to subsistence hunting, as in other third world countries. Regional officials in Wisconsin and Minnesota have focused on educating Hmong hunters on private property rights to diminish the risk of future conflicts.[3]
The greater Hmong community has suffered from negative reactions from the news and media. Directly after the shootings, bumper stickers with the lettering of "Save a deer, Shoot a Hmong" appeared in the midwest furthering racial tensions. Simultaneously, caucasians have taken upon themselves to "educate" the Hmong population on hunting and firearms regulations. Community forums were held to address racial tensions; however, these meetings ultimately failed to address the concerns of the Hmong community and became "American hunting and firearms" workshops.