Rittenhouse, Yang and Vang: Part III
“Every single one of them was white. They would not understand. They would never understand what my brother went through out there.” — Chou Vang, Chai Vang’s Sister
What we know is Chai Vang crossed into private property while on a hunting trip and climbed into a deer stand on that property. He was then confronted by one of the property owners before additional hunters arrived at the scene. This confrontation then cascaded into a mass shooting. Following the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict, Chai Vang’s cases, along with Dylan Yang’s, were quickly propped up as evidence of the racism and the shortcoming of the judicial system.
Between these three cases, Chai Vang’s case is believed to have been most impacted by race. Immediately after the verdict of Chai Vang’s trial, one of his friends said, “Why? I don’t believe he’s guilty. I know among you guys you know that he’s not guilty,” said Yang. “But what do we have as for an example in the jury room? All Caucasian; all American. Why can’t there be one Hmong, or why can’t there be a minority in there?” This brings us back to the question, if Chai Vang were white, would his whiteness or race trump the body of evidence? Would he have gone free if the jury was more “diverse” as suggested by Vang’s friend?
Self-Defense
In Vang’s own words, “The hunters surrounded him and hurled racial slurs, calling him “chink” and “gook”.” Truth be told, if I were in Vang’s situation, I certainly would have felt the same tension and unease. However, in the context of self-defense, when and was he in immediate physical harm? Self-defense, according to Cornell Law, is “the use of force to protect oneself from an attempted injury by another.”So the question of when and was he in immediate physical harm is essential because a verbal confrontation is different from a threat of bodily harm; valid reason must be found for the force used.
And additional question to ask is, “who was doing what?” As we will explore later, there were a total of eight victims. Did all the individuals present at that time make credible threats to Vang? Despite Vang’s claim of self-defense, who fired the first shot was never determined as both sides gave conflicting accounts. Based on varying accounts, it is also worth noting that nothing physical happened (pushing, punching) during the brief verbal exchange before Vang walked away. When the first shots broke, Vang and the initial hunters shot were about 25 yards apart. All that considered, when we start to weigh the evidence, I believe it begins to erode Vang’s claim of self-defense.
At the Scene
If we assume Vang acted in self-defense, the disproportion in force used and outcome certainly makes proving a self-defense claim difficult. Based on the accounts of the two survivors, bullet wounds on the dead, casings, and bullets found at the scene; it is believed that Vang fired at least 20 rounds from his rifle. The investigation found that the hunters did have one rifle on their possession. When this specific rifle was found, it had four rounds remaining (the rifle had a five-round capacity). The missing round was fired after Vang returned to the original point of conflict and found one of the wounded hunters. At this sight, Vang asked, “You’re not done yet?” before firing one or two more times at the hunter before leaving.
After the chaos there were eight victims — five dead at the scene and another who later died at the hospital. Of the six who died, not one was armed. As verified by medical examination, four victims were all shot in the back; some were shot multiple times. And based on various accounts not one had created a situation that would have presented an immediate danger or risk of great bodily harm to Vang.
What’s more, of five who died at the scene, four were not close to the original place of confrontation. Three of the victims were shot anywhere from 40–60 yards from the initial point of the altercation. The fourth victim was shot multiple times, 467 feet away from the point of argument. Put another way, that’s about 155 yards or one and a half football fields. Per the Circuit Court Brief, Vang’s described this sequence as follows, “The defendant stated he saw a man running through the woods toward the cabin yelling for help and ran after him and shot him two or three times.”
In considering the disproportionate use of force, the outcome, layered with the context of each shooting victim, Vang’s claim of self-defense seems to lose its ground. And if you read the Circuit Court Brief, you begin to ask, who was a threat to who? This question is another significant distinguishing difference between Chai Vang’s case and Kyle Rittenhouse’s case. Throughout the events that unfolded in Kenosha, Kyle was constantly on the retreat and hounded by individuals with clear intent to harm him. Additionally, it did not appear so though Kyle sought out individuals to shoot. In Vang’s case, the evidence suggests that Vang was advancing and not retreating.
Immediately After the Shooting
After the shooting, Vang fled the scene. He was then picked by a DNR warden three hours later. During this time, Vang stated that he threw the ammunition he was carrying into a swamp because he “did not want to shoot anybody else.” And while Vang’s reasoning could be exactly that, it could also easily be seen as disposing of any possible evidence that could link back to him, especially if he was successful at leaving the area. Learning that Vang disposed of his ammunition is something I had never heard of prior to researching and writing this essay. Again, when compared to Kyle, who proactively tried to turn himself the the police in Kenosah before turning himself in and his rifle, we don’t know what would have happened if Vang had not been picked up when he was but disposing of evidence certainly makes one wonder.
Disposing of his ammunition is not the only new piece of information I uncovered. Another piece of information, and one piece that I’ve never seen shared on social media, is that Vang gave two very different accounts of what transpired that day. Per the Circuit Court Brief, Vang’s originally stated, “he did not shoot any of the hunters.” Vang followed this claim by saying that the first hunter he saw shot the others with his firearm. You can read the account in the image below. And it’s a stunning statement.
And as the above statement claims, Vang then went on to change his account. If this new information reveals anything, it either reveals that Chai Vang was so overwhelmed by this experience that he fabricated a story to help him cope or was intentionally hiding something. Either way, he wasn’t being truthful. This wasn’t the only time Vang made a statement that didn’t align with the evidence. On three separate accounts where Vang shot another individual, he stated that a hunter was reaching for a firearm or had a firearm. Each time proved to be untrue — the victims had no firearms on them, or there was no firearm in their immediate vicinity.
Pre-Court and During Court
Perhaps the most damning evidence against Chai Vang was his own words. While waiting for his trial, Vang gave an interview, as reported by the Chicago Tribune, where he stated the following, “Some of them, I say I feel sorry for… some of them, I say they deserved (it) because they don’t know how to talk to me like they should be, shoot me the way they do.” This led to a crucial cross-examination where the prosecutor asked Vang about that specific statement and asked Vang about each shooter and whether or not they deserved to die. Upon this line of questioning, Vang said, “Those three, the one, I pretty much feel, think that they deserve.” While there has been analysis on how the dynamic of language and a Court setting may have impacted his answer, what is troubling is his belief that someone deserved to die. Again, in the context of self-defense, believing someone deserved to die suggests intent, thus cutting against a self-defense claim. At the end of Chai Vang’s trial, a jury found him guilty of six counts of murder.
There are common themes across each case in comparing Kyle Rittenhouse, Dylan Yang, and Chai Vang’s cases. As I’ve written, all three unfolded in very different ways, and I am inclined to believe that the verdicts in all three cases were justified regardless of their race. I also believe that the juries would have come to the same conclusions regardless of race. Now do the Courts get it right all the time? Probably not, but when we take complex issues and only view them through the prism of race we lack the complete picture of what transpired and are blinded by our sole focus on race. These cases are complex, and because they are, we as citizens should take the time to get into the complexities and learn for ourselves the facts of the matter.
