“Mung Xia K Je Ja Jeng!”—We Want Justice : Community Members Rally In Response To Fong Lee Verdict
250 Hmong community members and anti-police brutality activists rallied in St. Paul on Saturday afternoon, less than 24 hours after a rural, all-white jury found that "excessive force" was not used in the 2006 shooting of unarmed Hmong-American Fong Lee. Lee was shot eight times in the back by Minneapolis police officer Jason Anderson. Allegations that a gun was planted by Lee's body were ruled irrelevant to the case. Judge Paul Magnuson instructed the jury to “use their everyday life experiences” in their decision, noted several court witnesses. The judge also read the verdict while Lee's family were at lunch, so that the family heard the verdict from a reporter.
“On June 26, 2006 Lee was a victim, on June 28, 2008 he was still a victim, and he will remain a victim,” said rally organizer Tou Ger Xiong. Speaking about conflicting police testimony during the trial, he produced a Q-tip several feet long: “I brought this today to clean out all the crap I have been hearing in the last week.” Speaking to the crowd, Michelle Gross of CUAPB said that Fong’s murder was “the most blatant, disgusting case of police brutality” she has ever seen in her 25 years of advocacy against police brutality. Pablo Tapa, spoke of the common experiences of racial profiling practices by police who detain and often brutalize Latino people in order to “check their documents.”
The Coalition for Community Relations, a citizens' working group who observed the trial, raised a series of questions in a press release on Friday, May 29, including:
*Why was Fong Lee's alleged gang affiliation submitted in the trial....but Officer Anderson's history of racist comments not included?
*Why does a verdict rendered by an all-white jury in which the victim is a racial and ethnic minority differe so much from the interpretations and conclusions of minority observers?
*Why does the Minneapolis Police Department reward its officers with Medals of Valor, like in this case, when these officers and the facts of the case were still in dispute?
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justice is not serve here
I strongly feel that justice is not serve here. I do have lots of question myself. All white juries, at least they should have 1 black or one mexican on the jury, but no all WHITE. I do not agree with all white jury and also the facts that these juries didn't see the photo of the wound that was taken from fong's body.
the follwoing are my question to the juries:
1. why two arm officers will shot a unarm man 8 times all in the head?
2. If Fong shot at anderson as he claim Fong did, is there any missing bullet from the gun?
3. why would the guun be laying 3 feet away from the body, they are pointing guns at each other as anderson claim?
4. Why would anderson rise his gun at Fong's first?
5. The video show more then 3 feet when the shoting start, when did Fong drop his gun 3 feet away from his body?
6. do you ever look closely at Fong's shadow? It clearly visabled to the naked eye the right hand didn't hold a gun?
7. what about his clothes that, do you ever ask question beyond what presented in court? Like his shoes?
8. do you all view the news lately?
I felt that this all the main point that these juries over look. This is not about the money anymore because money can never bring their son back. I hope that anderson will kill again and this time it will be one of your son, so you will understand and suffer the pain that the Lee family goes through that you won't understand because you all are only people who sit at the bench and just know how to say gulity or not gulity.
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