By Raymond Douglas Chong, AsAmNews Staff Writer
On a spring evening in the Wine Country of California, two police officers responded to a disturbance call. They confronted an angry drunk man waving a wood stick. One police officer fired a single shot from his handgun into his chest. The man died on the driveway in front of his house.
Background
Kuanchung Kao was born in 1964 in Tainan City, Taiwan. He was drafted into the Republic of China Army to serve at the National Defense Medical Center. Then he graduated with a bachelor’s degree. He married Aylin Wu, a Korean Chinese.
In 1989, they immigrated to America in pursuit of their American Dream. Kao initially studied at South Dakota State University at Brookings. Then, they moved to Sonoma County, north of San Francisco, where Kao graduated from Sonoma State University. He was a quality control engineer for a technology firm in the San Francisco Bay Area. Wu was a registered nurse for a convalescent hospital.
By 1997, Kao and Wu owned a two-story wood frame house on 1512 Maria Place in Rohnert Park, a small city of Sonoma County. They were raising Karolyn, daughter, 5 years old, and Kyle and Kallen, twin toddler boys. The family took camping trips on their recreational vehicle. They were living the American Dream.
Shooting
On Monday evening, April 28, 1997, Kao was celebrating his promotion with friends at Cotati Yacht Club. At the bar, he was racially taunted with anti-Asian slurs by a group of White men. They were separated but Kao fought them again. Kao was very drunk as he angrily raged. A Cotati police officer arrived, but he refused to arrest the White men. The bartender arranged a taxi ride home for Kao.
By Tuesday morning, 2 AM, a drunken Kao tried to enter his house. He loudly yelled “Neighbors, please help me!” Residents called 911 about the disturbance. Kao grabbed a a six-foot long staff known as a bo from the recreational vehicle in the driveway.
Mike Lynch, a White police officer, first arrived and stopped his patrol car close to Kao in an attempt to scare him. But Kao hit the patrol car with the bo. Lynch backed the patrol car away. He waited for backup. Soon, Jack Shields, the second White police officer, arrived and aimed a spotlight on Kao and exited his vehicle. Lynch had radioed Shields to stay in his patrol car. His wife Wu tried to calm Kao and grab the bo. Shields commanded Wu to step away from Kao. A neighbor grabbed Wu.
As Kao walked toward Shields with his bo, he shot once at Kao’s chest. Then, Shields handcuffed Kao behind his back and with his face down on the driveway, as he was breathing and bleeding. Wu tried to administer first aid but was restrained and threatened with arrest by the Shields and Lynch. The paramedics soon arrived, but Kao was dead. From her bedroom, Karolyn saw the entire disturbance and shooting. His body remained in the driveway until Tuesday noon.
At the police station, Shields talked with a detective from the Sonoma County Sheriff Department. He said that Kao was waving a stick in a martial arts pose. When Kao walked toward him, Shields fired one shot at his chest.
He gets about 3 feet from me and then basically, he is gonna get me if I turn around and run off if I do not, and I shot him.
I have handled these types of situations before and the guy drops it, and, you know, we all go home and have better and that would have been normal. But this just … you know, did not do that.
“Officer who killed man; Details of Rohnert Park shooting in 600-page report,” San Francisco Examiner, July 23, 1997
Among newspapers across California, headlines read “Man waving stick killed by Rohnert Park police”:
A man who refused to drop a stick he was using as a martial arts weapon was shot to death by police.
Officers responded at 2:16 a.m. Tuesday to a dozen 911 calls regarding a man waving a stick in a threatening manner of a residence. When they arrived, they found Kuanchung Kao, 33, waving the stick, investigators said.
Kao allegedly hit the police cars with the stick and refused to put it down. When he approached officers, Jack Shields and Mike Lynch, Shields fired one shot, striking Kao in the chest. He died a short time, police said.
Associated Press, April 30, 1997
Aftermath
The shooting of Kao triggered protests by the Asian community in the San Francisco Bay Area. Community outrage appeared in many vigils, demonstrations, and rallies.
An attorney at the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco deemed it a cover it. A lot of Asians are in denial about race. But Mister Kao could have been anyone. He represented the Asian American success story. People like to believe that you come to America, you work hard, you succeed. Race is not a factor. But there is strong recognition now that race was a factor in this killing.
Nancy Wang, president of the Redwood Empire Chinese Association, helped the family deal with the media. She was angry that the bo was considered a deadly weapon. She considered Kao a victim of racial profiling. One week after the Kao shooting, at Wu’s house, Wang saw Karolyn finally cry. For two years, Wang served as Wu’s spokesperson with the media and at public meetings.
She said, He was drunk, but he did not deserve to die that way. The officers could have given more warning or stayed in the car. They should have backed off and let him cool off a little bit.”
Larry Shinagawa, a professor at Sonoma State University, in Asian American Studies, called the Kao case as a “travesty.” He was a civil rights activist. He spoke out at rallies on behalf of Kao’s widow and children.
Aylin Wu poignantly mused: One little callous bullet and I became a widow at age 33 with three young children. It destroyed our American Dream. We worked so hard in the last eight years. We have bought a nice house in the best area of Rohnert Park. We created three beautiful children. In our career we both were climbing to the top. This is all over now. My boys will never have a chance to say daddy…. My daughter’s childhood stopped at the moment of the gunshot…. It is a terrible mistake to migrate to America.
In August 1998, Aylin Wu and the children fled Rohnert Park to Irvine, California, to escape the trauma and torment of Kao’s death.
Injustice
Shields and Lynch were never reprimanded or prosecuted for their use of deadly force against Kao.
The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department investigated the Kao shooting. They submitted a report with the Sonoma County District Attorney’s office in May 1997. On June 19, 1997, Michael Mullins, Sonoma County District Attorney, decided to not file criminal charges against Shields. Mullins concluded that Shields acted in self-defense.
Shields testified that Kao charged him with the stick in a threatening way. On August 5, 1997, the Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety ruled Officer Shields acted with their policies and procedures for the use of deadly force.
The California Attorney General’s office investigated whether Sonoma County District Attorney’s decision not to prosecute was an abuse of discretion. Dan Lungren, California Attorney General concluded that deadly force was justified.
The United States Attorney in San Francisco requested Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate the shooting. They suspected that Kao’s civil rights had been violated through the use of excessive force. On January 28, 1998, United States Attorney Michael Yamaguchi declined to file criminal charges against Shields, citing insufficient evidence that Kuanchung Kao’s civil rights were violated.
On February 2, 1998, John Burris, civil rights attorney, and the Asian Law Caucus filed of a $50 million federal lawsuit against Rohnert Park, its Public Safety Department, and Shields and Lynch. The lawsuit alleges the Rohnert Park wrongfully used deadly force, covered up the misuse of force and violated the civil rights of Kao and his family. The suit was settled out-of-court for $1 million in 2001 with no admission of liability.
Beside the Kao shooting, seven other police officer-involved deaths occurred in Sonoma County during a two-year period. On February 20, 1998, hearing by the California Advisory Committee of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, they examined allegations, by people of color about police brutality and their misconducts.
In their fact-finding report, California Advisory Committee concluded: The Advisory Committee is appalled at the number of deadly incidents, justified or not, that have occurred within 25 months. The Advisory Committee agrees with community spokespersons who said that the number of events should be cause for alarm for all citizens of the county. While the officers were found to have followed proper procedures, the Advisory Committee questions whether alternatives to deadly force may have affected peaceful resolutions to the incidents and encourages the county sheriff and chiefs to review their training and procedures for such options. At a minimum, the departments must adopt policies and train officers to have the attitude that deadly force is the option of last resort. If they do not, the community is obligated to continue its efforts for reform of a system they believe requires drastic change.
Memories of Nate Shinagawa
Nate Shinagawa, son of Larry Shinagawa, recalled the Kao shooting to AsAmNews recently The family was living in Santa Rosa, near Sonoma State University, where his dad taught Asian American Studies. Nate was a thirteen-year-old attending middle school. His Dad was terribly upset by the Kao shooting for Kao was a past student.
When it was immediately happening, the City was doing damage control. They understood that it did not look good.
What was poignant for me was how traumatized the wife was. She saw the shooting as it happened.
My Dad, a Sansei, was ready for the fight. It was a cause to speak out. But it felt that we and the family were on an island. Fortunately, activists from the San Francisco, especially the Asian Law Caucus, supported us.
It was a tragedy. No admission of liability or remorse by City leadership or by the Police.
Nate was a latchkey kid. Dad taught at Sonoma State University. Mom worked at San Francisco. Nate returned home after 4 pm when he received a racist deluge of crank calls. The calls continued for weeks. Then, a flyer from Ku Klux Khan of Northern California was left at the front door of their home, as an ominous threat. The Police Department was not responsive to the situation.
Meanwhile, Nate says his dad was constantly stopped by Rohnert Park police officers for minor traffic infractions. He was being targeted and faced continual harassment. He was forced to drive a friend’s vehicle to avoid recognition.
Legacy
Twenty-four years after his tragic death, the legacy of Kuanchung Kao shooting still reverberates. In the San Francisco Bay Area, the Asian American community actively defends their American civil rights and duly participates in American politics.
- Victor Hwang serves as judge for Office 7 of the San Francisco County Superior Court.
- Nancy Wang became an impassioned advocate of Chinese civil rights in Redwood Empire.
- Nate Shinagawa was inspired to political leadership to affect change. He was student body president of his high school. At Cornell University, he led Asian Pacific Americans for Action. In upstate New York, he was elected at age 22 to the Tompkins County Legislature and eventually led the county’s Public Safety Committee. In 2012, as a 28-year-old, he unsuccessfully ran for New York’s 23rd Congressional District. Now, Nate is Chief Operating Officer for a medical center in Arizona.
Nate remarked:
Unfortunately, Kuanchung’s story is horribly and eerily similar to other stories for people of color, especially black men, subject to discrimination and death from a flawed law enforcement system.
We now see that the system is still broken. We still have a lot of work to make change.
After 24 years, in looking back of what happened, Kuanchung’s death inspired a generation of Asian Americans in Northern California community to seek a voice on the table.
For Aylin Wu, Karolyn Kao, Kyle Kao and Kallen Kao, the legacy of Kuanchung Kao shooting remains a bitter trail of tears.
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Raymond great article and thanks for continuing to point out these racial disparities.
Excellent reporting re an horrendous police execution!