Soobleej Kaub Hawj, 35, of Kansas City, Kansas, was driving a pickup truck loaded with guns and 132 pounds of marijuana when he ignored orders to turn west onto a main road at a checkpoint June 24 as a lightning-sparked fire threatened a rural Big Springs area near the Oregon border, District Attorney Kirk Andrus said.
Hawj was struck several times in the head, chest, arms and legs. In addition to the handgun and the marijuana, investigators found another handgun and two loaded assault rifles with large magazines, the letter said.
The shooting sparked accusations that racism played a role in the shooting of Hawj, who was a member of the Hmong ethnic group.
Hawj, who had both amphetamines and methamphetamine in his system, pulled a .45-caliber handgun and pointed it at a law enforcement officer, causing other officers to open fire ...
Authorities last year said the Mount Shasta Vista subdivision in the Big Springs area had as many as 6,000 greenhouses illegally growing marijuana, with the farms mostly run by people of Hmong and Chinese descent.
The county has tried to crack down on the illegal grows, in part by prohibiting trucked-in water deliveries to Hmong farmers who run illegal operations.
The growers sued and last fall a federal judge issued a temporary injunction against the ban, saying the practice raises “serious questions” about racial discrimination and leaves the growers without a source of water for drinking, bathing and growing food.
In his letter, however, Andrus said the fire checkpoint wasn’t being used to find marijuana but merely to get people out of an area endangered by the fire. Hawj, however, may have thought he would be stopped and searched, Andrus said.
A June 2021 post about the killing is here. A fall 2021 story about county efforts to starve the pot farms of water is here.
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