No excessive force in Fong Lee shooting, jury rules

Intereting but it is not unpredictable.

This pissed me off. Like I was listening in the car and I felt like I got kicked in the face. This was so bloody obvious the fact that this dude is getting off scot-free is a Cheney-in-your-face level of insult.

The cops in this town are ungodly protected. Magnuson is a suck up hack.

Hey nihilix, why don’t you go on a ride along and see what kind of garbage the police have to deal with? And I’m not talking Edina or Plymouth, try north Minneapolis. As usual, the media somehow try to twist the story and make this clown (Fong Lee) into some little misguided angel because “his family says the gun was planted.” Yada Yada. Truth is, this guy was a hood, a hard core gang member with ties throughout the Asian gang community. Any loss of life is tragic, especially in these circumstances, but c’mon, let’s look at reality. No policeman wakes up before his shift and says I’m going to shoot someone today. Ask any cop, their worst nightmare is drawing their weapon.

Lessons to be learned here:

Chief Dolan says it’s “time to move forward”…however, word of advice to all bikers… “move forward” carefully, one biker at a time; not in groups of three or more or you may be profiled as a “gang”.

And if you run out of fear, run backwards, so the boys-in-blue will not have to shoot you in the back..it’s bad for the public image of the city’s finest….

Remember when you were in 1st grade and the teacher wanted you to just shut up and sit still. Well, this is the message coming from this trial. We need to be complacent, do what we are told, no matter what we think, and go along with whatever they decide is best for us. It’s only going to get worse as these incidents keep getting validated with medals of valor and awards. Welcome to the New World Order.

I have poured over any bit of information I could get my hands on. What I don’t see is how a police could obtain a Russian gun to plant in a few minutes. It was never in an evidence room. Are we to believe that he just carried an extra gun in case he felt like shooting someone to use as a plant? That doesn’t seem credible. Then I have to ask, why is someone running from police after they have been asked to stop? If he wasn’t carrying a weapon, then stopping would be the logical course of action. If he WAS carrying a weapon, then running would be a reasonable reaction to being chased; if he was caught with a gun, he would be in big trouble. My educated guess is that Fong Lee did indeed, have a gun and was taking his chances that he could get away. I would expect the policeman to shoot someone who was running with a gun in his hand. If he did not, Fong Lee could have turned at any time to shoot the officer. The verdict makes sense. Then, you take into account that the victim had several arrests, was involved with a dangerous gang and had recently purchased as assault rifle, if I was on the jury, I would have come to the same conclusion, it boils down to credibility. Sorry, if you are involved in a gang, have a record, are hanging with people carrying dangerous weapons, and you get involved in a police dispute, you probably are not going to be perceived as credible, whether you are black, Asian, or purple. It is NOT your race that is the determining factor, it is your character and history.

Yes yes…it’s true….being a cop is dirty work you see all the filth and puke floating around so you best have the right frame of mind before you draw your gun and shot a teen on a bicycle with 8-9 bullets. 8-9 Bullets !!! What kind of a cop does that ?
This doesn’t sit well with me.

Rick – are you a cop? Because I don’t think their worst nightmare is drawing their weapon – Id’ say it’s having one drawn on them. Let’s look at reality of racial profiling, which study after study shows exists. And let’s look at the reality of the gun in the video – wait, no gun in the hand, or the fleeing suspect shot in the back, or the fact that you think people are garbage.

And let’s look at how often cops do time for excessive force. What time? Seems like someone somewhere would. White cops just shot a black undercover offduty in NYC. Asian cop got shot in same situation here in town. And the gun, which on first report was one seized by the second team of officers on the site? With no physical evidence linking kid to gun?

The term “railroaded” comes to mind. I cannot believe in this age where DNA/forensic evidence (so often touted by police as needing additional funding and that it is the ‘difference maker’ in so many crimes) fails to link Lee to the gun. If 13 vehicles and cash can go missing from the MN Gang Task Force, it is no stretch of the imagination that a small handgun could end up missing. This whole thing does not smell right, and the fact that it all began with apparently no probable cause is the worst part. It wasn’t, “Oh there’s Fong Lee, known gang member, let’s follow him,” it was, “oh, there is a group of kids on bikes that happen to be Hmong. They MUST be up to something.” Race relations and the MPD take yet another hit, as does the credibility of cops, prosecutors, and judges state-wide. Does anyone still trust the police? They seem like thugs with badges.

Nihilix, please read my first sentence again and take me up on it.
No, I’m not a cop. I agree some are over the top, but in todays environment, they literally have to use excessive force to take someone down that’s not compliant. Situational control in the least amount of time is what’s desired. Take a look at the Rodney King case. I lived in LA when that went down and went to school with a woman with intimate knowledge of the entire ordeal. What you saw on the idiot box was not the entire video, only of King getting kicked and tasered. Sadly, a civilian board (people who have never been in a squad car) had ordered the LAPD to stop using a choke hold to subdue out of control suspects. They were told to taser them three times and if that didn’t work, use batons etc. until the suspect could be cuffed. But you never heard that in the media either. Same thing is going on here. The rubes out there demanding Dolans resignation are just that, rubes. Dolan would not be making the statements he is if there was still controversy over this.

Yes, let’s give a medal to a racist white male with a gun who just shot an Asian guy. Good job America!

Yeah White people. Gotta stick together. Maybe Andersen should run for Grand Wizard of the Minnesota KKK branch.

1. The video from the surveillance cameras shown that Fong Lee has NO gun…
- Should you believe the video or the cop?

2. That gun has NO finger prints of Fong Lee…
- Fong Lee wipe out all his finger prints before he died?

3. All-white jury…
- If you think its ok then why not all-Hmong jury?

WARNING!
The world is whatching YOU!

Well, congratulations to the MPD and officer Anderson. They have managed to murder an citizen and get away with it. I hope that Anderson gets more awards and go on killing the citizens of this nation. Am I surprised that the Lee family would not win? NO. Are you kidding? This case only proves that our own legal system and our officers are corrupt. I guess we better start watching our backs then because who knows where Anderson may be around the corner.

if the guy was running away on his bicycle why would the officer have any belief that Fong was a threat to him? is someone was running away from me i would maybe just maybe think that he was scared of me, maybe. i wouldn’t shoot nobody running away from me either. i could see if Fong had a gun drawn, then that would be a good reason to shoot him, but dang to shoot him in the back when the guy is trying to run away, thats awful. RIP Fong, and to that officer and the jury, God will give you the final judgement!

There are claims that the gun was planted or a “throw-down” gun, but these claims have no merit.

Many people try to point out the lack of fingerprints, blood, or other residue on the gun linking it to Fong, as if it were some kind of conspiracy. But the people saying this aren’t revealing anything except that they know nothing about forensics. There is a simple explanation for all of this. First, the fingerprints. It is common knowledge in investigative fields that you can NOT lift latent prints from a heavily textured surface. Guess what? The grip of a gun is a HEAVLIY TEXTURED SURFACE, so it is perfectly reasonable that no prints were found. It is simply not possible. Also, the lack of blood can be explained simply by the fact that blood doesn’t spurt everywhere immediately after someone is shot. Unless a major artery is hit, there simply isn’t going to be a lot of blood everywhere, except for where bullets entered and possibly exited the body. People who work in investigations know this, whereas the conspiracy theoroists clearly do not.

Also, people like to point out that it is not clearly visible whether or not Fong had a gun in the surveillance video. They say that since the officer’s gun is visible, why isn’t Fong’s gun visible? Once again, this is easily explainable. Minneapolis Police carry large duty weapons, which are NOT meant to be concealed. Fong’s gun however, a SMALL .380 caliber pistol, is TINY in comparison and extremely easy to conceal. It is perfectly reasonable that a large duty gun would be visible in a grainy surveillance video, but a small pistol designed for concealment would not.

Another issue people complain about is the number of shots used to take down Fong. People who complain about this clearly have ZERO knowledge of handgun ballistic/effectiveness and the law regarding use of deadly force. First, police officers and private citizens with carry permits are taught that if their life, or the life of another is threatened, to shoot and continue shooting at center mass until the threat is gone. Even if the suspect has fallen the the ground but still has control of a weapon or is trying to reach a weapon, deadly force is still allowed under law, and rightfully so. A suspect with a handgun, or even reaching for a handgun, is clearly a deadly threat.

Second, handguns are notoriously poor “fight stoppers.” There are numerous records of suspects who have been shot MANY more times than Fong was, and lived to tell the tale. You will also notice I said they are trained to shoot at CENTER MASS (the chest.) Some people have said he should have tried shooting Fong in the leg, which is ridiculous Hollywood non-sense. Shooting at a narrow target like a leg is incredibly difficult, even if the target is immobile and and at close range. People who suggest that watch too many movies, and clearly have never shot a gun, especially under stressful conditions.

There is so much more I could add, but I think this is more than enough for now. Until people understand what I have written here, they really aren’t informed enough to participate in a debate like this.

REALIST:
your man was arrest? they will reopen fong’s case