Vang Convicted!!!

Status
Not open for further replies.
Well, there doesn't seem to be much dispute that he was angrily confronted, and they were calling him names... since this has been an area with a great deal of racial tension, I don't think it's much of a stretch to accept Vang's claims that he was the subject of racial epithets, and of course he was also outnumbered, so I can imagine he was scared. Still, that doesn't give him the right to shoot all these people... As the prosecuting attorney said:
"He was called names and that's wrong, but it's not unlawful. It did not interfere with his person," said Wisconsin Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager, who helped prosecute the case.

Lautenschlager said: "Mr. Vang was not attacked. He was angry, and rightfully so. The defendant had no actual belief he was in imminent danger of death or bodily harm, not when he chased down all the victims."
Click to expand...

As far as
Vang came from the killing fields and I think that his old way of life came into play
Click to expand...
I mean come on now - you're saying that because he comes from Laos (not Cambodia btw, where the name Killing Fields comes from), you're saying that fact makes him a murderer? If that's true, then all the Hmong here are murderers. He actually moved to the US when he was 12, and got his military experience in the California Army National Guard.

I do think this guy was guilty alright, and think justice was served, but I don't think you should say he's guilty because of his birthplace - that's a very dangerous and unfair things to say.
 
if Im poaching on your property you are not authorized to use deadly physical force against me, if you attempt to do so and I use deadly physical force to defend myself I have a viable self defense claim.

WildhornbooklawAlaska
 
I saw some of this case on TV. First thing I thought was this....

If im walking into a gangs hood because im lost and a group of eyes surround me and starts throwin racial slurs I will be very fearful for my life. If one of them fires at me and misses I will surely as hell take my chance to survive and take as many of them out.

Im not sure about you guys but some rednecks can be pretty nasty to people of a different race. It also works the other way around but im just making a point.

The truth will never be known on this case. Im not defending him but im not defending those who were taken down. Its very possible that the men had concealed weapons too.

I feel for the families stuck in the middle of this. But I can't pass a solid opinion because none of us know enough about the case to give one.
 
Just to sort of play devil's advocate for a moment...

Let's assume parts of both stories are correct. Vang is approached at first, by 2 hunters, one of which is armed, who order him out of the stand. After berating Vang, they order him off the property.

Then, during a radio conversation between the discovering hunters and the owner of the property, who wants to talk to the poacher, the hunters go after and detain Vang. This is where it starts to get dicey, IMO. Because they had him at first and released him. Now they are detaining Vang again.

The property owner arrives, along with several others. No one but the one original hunter is armed!! Then these hunters surround Vang and offer a set of racial slurs and other invectives. According to all accounts, this borders on such hostility that Vang really feels threatened... And they release Vang, again.

The next point is that Vang says "they" shot at him. Yet even Vang admits that only one person is armed. So Vang takes him out. If this part is true, then Vang did what I think some of us might have done. For the sake of the argument, let's forget that no expended cartridges were found, indicating that the one rifleman had fired, as Vang contends. Vangs returns fire, killing the one hunter.

It is everything after this that doesn't make a lot of sense.

In one sense, it would be a tactical mistake to leave everyone there and make your escape. They could all go and arm themselves and hunt you down. So eliminate the threat altogether. You get what happens next. Dead and wounded bodies laying everywhere.

In another sense, if you are a fair woodsman, you leave and put some distance between you and those others. Tactically, once out of sight, you move 90 degrees from the anticipated direction of travel and at the first opportunity, find a likely spot and hunker down. Taking no further action unless or until it is necessary. Comes the dark, and you make your escape.

We sorta know which scenario actually happened.

The moral of the story?

Six or eight unarmed guys can confront an armed poacher and cuss the snot out of him. They are in the right.... Dead right.

When you're out in the woods, on a hunting trip, always be armed. You just never know, in todays day and age, who you'll encounter. That's the part that just amazed me.
 
Andrew and Anti -- good stuff. Andrew put very well the point I was trying to make.

You know ... I hadn't read the details of the case as much as is described above. I didn't know they grabbed him/released him/etc.

If so, I imagine they tried to disarm him. Would you let yourself be disarmed in the middle of the woods by a bunch of people who clearly hate your guts for racial reasons?

Technically ... they may have the right to arrest you for poaching. But damned if I'm surrendering myself to someone without a badge. And I'm not going to confront an armed person and ask them to surrender themselves to me if I'm not a cop -- especially for poaching.

It also sounds like it wasn't clear the victim's rifle was fired (though a cartridge could have been picked up and carried away).

In my own case ... once while off-roading alone with my wife (usually go out in a group, in this case we were just taking a day for ourselves) we got into a conflict with a large group of white trash four wheelers. They were tearing up the trail and knocking down trees just to watch them fall.

My wife said something and one of the toothless women went nuts. I told her my wife wasn't going to fight her and we were just going to move on. Then there were guys charging up to our vehicle screaming insults at me to fight.

We were a long ways away from any cops. I had a 4" .357 fully loaded in my car (pre CCW).

My choice ... since I was pretty sure no one there really intended to murder me (was taking a chance) I left the gun where it was. There were at least 10 in this group and they were drunk and I'd guarantee they had any number of gun in their vehicles, though I didn't see any.

And if I'd gunned somebody down I'm sure I'd be in the position Vang was (though hopefully these guys would be too dumb to hold a story together or had criminal records -- that happens a lot too) assuming I just didn't get shot right there in the woods.

In the end, I apologized for stuff I definitely didn't need to, got called a lot of names and felt like a coward for walking away for months afterward, but at least nobody got killed and/or charged with murder.

When I look back at it, I think I did the exact right thing. I had my wife to protect, and sometimes being a live coward is better than what can happen to a beaten down or even dead hero. At the time we were hoping my wife was pregnant and I also couldn't risk her being attacked.

I should mention, BTW, that in all my years of fanatical off-roading I've met people of many classes and income levels, but these were the first and only that were actually "deliverance" type violent white trash.

(good thing this all happened in my gray hair days, BTW -- back in my 20's with no wife to protect there would have been some whup ass administered -- to someone).
 
It amazes me the number of people who will try to make excuses for this mass-murdering scumbag. But me no buts. There are no buts for this guy.
 
We arent making excuses. How do you know the other men werent running to get rifles or weapons from their vehicles? Like I said nobody here knows enough about the case. The guy could have run which I do not recall hearing. I bet if it were a white middle class woman there would be no issue with her killing in self defense.
 
We arent making excuses. How do you know the other men werent running to get rifles or weapons from their vehicles? Like I said nobody here knows enough about the case. The guy could have run which I do not recall hearing. I bet if it were a white middle class woman there would be no issue with her killing in self defense.
Click to expand...
So what you are saying is that the unarmed hunters didn't exercise good faith by standing still while Vang shot at them. They escalated the incident by running away once Vang began shooting them with his rifle....
thinking.gif
 
Three Bad One ...

the situation we're posing could apply to the Vang case, and is a clear case of self defense.

Let me ask you this ... you're assaulted by multiple parties. One fires at you with his rifle. You shoot him. The others run for their cars yelling "Get your rifle ... let's hunt him down."

Do you stand there and patiently wait for them to get their rifles? Not a good way to survive, my friend.

And I don't kow what Vang claimed, but were they really unarmed? Remember, the crime scene was in the middle of the woods and open/available for tampering for some time.

So chances are Vang is a murderer who's getting what he deserved.

But we can't rule out he's an innocent man who aggressively defended his life who is serving life in prison.

Apparently you don't think the US legal system could possibly make a mistake. I disagree.
 
What im saying is that Vang could have shot them in fear of them returning armed.
Click to expand...
So lets see, Vang murders the 1st hunter (the only one with a gun), then, afraid the unarmed survivers running away (after the shooting) might decide to report him, or, God forbid, arm themselves for protection, he decides to kill them all...

...and somehow that is a valid defense .
thinking.gif
 
HMmm lets see. Lets say there are 6 nazis. 1 is visibly armed and the others arent. Seeing as how they are nazi like the others were hunters. They are likley to have weapons somewhere wether or not its on them.

So lets say an Americans come up on a bunker. He has a pistol and a flame thrower.He shoots the guy that shot at him and lets say 5 of the unarmed men retreat. DO you (A) Flame them out or (B) Turn around and walk away? IM trying to use this as a point though im not sure if im explaining myself well. Point being said its all about survival. A group of men decided to pick on a foreigner for some fun. One is reported to fire. They all loose. Doesnt get any easier then that. If a group of gang of guys comes up to me and 1 fires ill sure as hell take out the whole gang seeing how probable it is they have firearms somewhere themselves.
 
The whole truth and nothing but the truth has not come out and never will, perhaps Vang came closer than his advisaries. He murdered, was tried and convicted, would have been the same if only one hunter had been killed. It is quite probable that everybody erred grossly, we will never know. On the other hand if he had been the only one killed it seems likely the rest would have walked after getting all the stories together with a good shyster lawyer.

But mass murder is what we are talking about and he rightfully must pay the price.
 
Gannet, TBO, I was in no way defending what Vang did. For at least 5 of the people, it was out and out murder. For 3 others, it was attempted murder. For the one hunter who was armed, it may have been murder or it may have been self defense. The Jury chose to believe it was murder. They rendered a verdict of 6 counts of murder and 3 counts of attempted murder. That settles it, for me. Justice done. Would have been better if Wisconsin had a death penalty, IMO, but there that is...

All I wanted to do was to make everyone aware that there were some bad choices made by everyone. Starting with trying to "recapture" the poacher, and leading up to 6 other people coming up on the scene, unarmed, to confront an armed psychopath (yes, I think all poachers are psychopaths). A fatal mistake.

Now, as far as I have been able to tell, no one, at any point, tried to disarm this guy. Another fatal mistake.

They let the poacher go a second time, still armed, but only after clearly threatening him. Yet another fatal mistake.

We should be learning a lesson from this encounter. The Hunters were in the right in just about every aspect I can think of. Doesn't do them much good, as they are Dead Right.
 
I found the stories about how "Vang could have been" a little off. Vang stayed in the area after the initial shootings, engaging, and killing, people attempting to rescue the shot hunters. He had NO CLUE who they were, as they could have been members of the local Volunteer Rescue Squad.

As to who, or even how many people were uttering ethnic slurs, that's a matter open to debate. It could have been Mr. Vang's poor luck to encounter a man who understood some of his language as he walked away, muttering his own racial epithets, starting the confrontations more voluble portion.

The fact that there was no sign of a spent cartridge from the hunters isn't hard to accept. Just SUPPOSE that nobody got the chance to fire. Most hunters in that area use bolt-action weapons, so, the dead hunter's weapon would have had the empty round still in the gun, had he fired. Who, out of the surviving hunters, all of whom were wounded, would have crawled over to the weapon, and ejected the round, hiding it?

It just doesn't fit the scenario. Instead of trying to second guess the people with the information, why don't we just accept the fact that Vang trespassed, was confronted, and reacted by killing his confronters, and then hung around to pick off anyone who came to help. I have no idea what was going through his mind, but I'll be willing to believe that it wasn't fear of these men and women.

Add to this that the initial stories from the survivors are a lot closer than that of Mr. Vang's, which changed multiple times. I doubt that the survivor's, some of whom were unconscious, story could have been cooked up while lying on the trails, some hundreds of feet apart. If I'm lying on the ground, shot, with a lunatic still in the area, I'm not going to hold a shouted conversation with others about a good story.

This is the problem with attempting to concoct a defense for a heinous act. You can believe that the same scurrilous attorney discussed before WAS the one trying to save Mr. Vang.

By the way, exactly WHO was going to come in and sanitize the scene, way out there in the woods? Your tin-foil is showing if you believe that there is/was yet more involved people in this. If this were anything but an exercise in conspiracy theory, why wouldn't the sanitation crew have removed Vang from this mortal coil? Wait!! Maybe this NEVER happened at all!! Vang is the victim of a Majestic 13 plot because he witnessed the landing of a Ferengi transport in Laos in 1978!! Yeah, that makes as much sense as any other excuse in this thread. Calling Fox Molder !! :confused: :confused:
 
There's a lot more information above that adds to what happened that day that makes is more clear that justice was served in the jury's verdict. Like I said ... I was not trying to defend Vang. Just trying to be Devil's advocate and show how what REALLY happened can get twisted around.

And I obviously hadn't read as much about the case as some of y'all.

So lets see, Vang murders the 1st hunter (the only one with a gun), then, afraid the unarmed survivers running away (after the shooting) might decide to report him, or, God forbid, arm themselves for protection, he decides to kill them all...

...and somehow that is a valid defense .
Click to expand...

For 3bad one ... I'm going to try just ONE more time.

In the scenarios presented, Vang did not MURDER the 1st hunter. The 1st hunter attempted to murder him and then Vang defended himself with his firearm, thus in a proper and self defense manner killing the man trying to murder him.

Doe that make it more clear? If the armed hunter fired first and Vang shot him back, then it is SELF DEFENSE and NOT MURDER! That's the whole point we're making here. That maybe the armed hunter was an attempted murderer who failed, and Vang was the hero who defended himself.

A guy shoots someone trying to kill him ... sound like a subject we talk a lot about here? Something we normally defend? Hmmm? Sound familiar?

And likewise in the proposed scenario the others weren't just running for protection or to get weapons to defend themselves, they were either ALREADY ARMED (and guns removed after crime) OR were running to get weapons with promises to hunt the man down.

Can't make it any clearer than that. *whoo*

The scenario made official in court may or may not be what happened. I don't know. I wasn't there. Neither were you.
 
Regardless of who may or may not have started it, the fact remains that there is absolutely no scenario that would justify shooting an unarmed person in the back at over 100 yards. Even if his first shot was self-defense, it became murder the moment he started pulling the trigger on people who had no weapons, and who were in the process of running in the other direction at high speed.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top