There have been other Asian American victims of police misconduct in the Bay
Area. Cau Tran, a Vietnamese American, was shot in her San Jose home in
2003 because she was holding a vegetable peeler. Kuang Chung Kao, a Chinese
American, was shot outside his home in Rohnert Park in 1997 because the
police assumed he had deadly martial arts skills.
Kuang Chung Kao, a Taiwanese man from San Francisco, April 1997, was
celebrating a job promotion in a bar when he became the target of racially-
motivated slurs. Drunk and angry, he was waving a broomstick at his
neighbors for help just when police arrived.
Although Kao’s wife removed the broomstick from his grasp, the officers
ordered her to step backwards and fired a shot into her husband’s chest.
Kao was still alive, but the police prevented his wife, a registered nurse,
from administering to his wound and, thus, he lost his life. After the
incident, the police department claimed that Kao still had the broomstick in
his hands when he was shot.
The officer presumed that because he was an Asian man, he was doing martial
arts, and shot him just 34 seconds upon arrival at the scene. In response to
Mr. Kao's death, along with many community members and leaders and other
civil rights organizations, we formed the Coalition for Justice for the Kao
Family to demand a fair examination of what took place on April 29, 1997.
北加州硅谷10多年前,有一轰动美国华人社会的警察乱杀案件。一对台湾来的夫妇,男
的是电脑工程师,女的是护士,一天傍晚,男的喝酒后在自家们口耍酒疯,手里拿着一
扫地的塑料笤把,被邻居报警,警察下车后,命令台湾男的放下塑料笤把,男的犹豫一
下,警察一枪击中他的心脏,女的是护士要实施急救,被警察拦阻,自己的丈夫就死在
自己的眼皮下。从警察下车到打死台湾电脑工程师,只用了几秒钟,警察轻轻松松,快
速敏捷,毫不犹豫地剥夺了对警察没有任何威胁的工程师的生命,留下了两个不满一岁
的双胞胎儿子。旧金山湾区台湾籍人士个个义愤填膺,特别是台湾籍律师免费为台湾女
护士打官司。怎知法官站在警察的立场上,打了十年的官司也没结果,最后政府赔偿了
100万,开枪打人的警察没有受任何处分。。。开枪打人的警察在法庭上陈述开枪的理
由,开枪打人的警察在法庭上陈述开枪的理由,中国人都有功夫,棍子在中国人手中危
险。
THE FATAL APRIL shooting of Kuan Chung Kao, 33, by Rohnert Park Police
Officer Jack Shields and the seven other police-involved deaths in Sonoma
County over the past two years are gaining fervent attention nationwide,
including a glimmer of interest from one long-silent local human-rights
group.
In new developments disclosed this week, the Independent has learned that
the Rev. Jesse Jackson will visit Sonoma County to meet Kao's widow, Ayling
Wu, at an as-yet-undetermined date; state Attorney General Dan Lungren
announced during a visit to Santa Rosa this week that his office has opened
an investigation into the Kao shooting; Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., will
meet with Wu on Oct. 3; and a second meeting between local law-enforcement
chiefs, Bay Area civil-rights groups, and officials from the U.S. Justice
Department is set for Oct. 1 to discuss ways to increase racial and ethnic
sensitivity among local police.
Kao, drunk and swinging a wooden pole, was shot at point-blank range on his
front lawn by an officer who later said he felt threatened by Kao's "
martial arts-style" moves. Critics point out that Kao had no martial arts
training and contend that the shooting was racially motivated.
The FBI, the U.S. Justice Department, and, last week, the U.S. Commission
on Civil Rights have all stepped in to probe a possible pattern of police
brutality alleged in eight separate cases. Yet critics say the response from
our own backyard--specifically from the Sonoma County Human Rights
Commission--has been strangely absent. "I'm pretty disappointed," says Nancy
Wang, president of the Redwood Empire Chinese Association. "The commission
has put this under the table--despite all the action right now, the Human
Rights Commission is doing nothing."