The Hunter Slayings: Self-Defense Against Racism?

Sept. 15, 2005 — -- A Hmong immigrant on trial for killing six deer hunters last year claims he acted in self-defense, despite the fact that four of the victims had been shot in the back. The defendant, Chai Vang, has also told a newspaper that some of victims "deserved" what happened.

Now Vang, an ethnic Hmong who came to the United States from a refugee camp in Thailand in 1980, is counting on an all-white jury to believe that he shot eight people because he was afraid of a bias attack.

He is charged with six counts of first-degree intentional homicide and two counts of attempted homicide resulting from the hunting skirmish in Hayward, Wis., on Nov. 21, 2004. He could testify as early as today.

Prosecutors say Vang shot the hunters after two of them accused him of trespassing during deer season and threatened to report him. But Vang says one of the men fired on him first and he claims he felt threatened because they had called him several racial epithets.

Most of the victims were shot in the back, however, suggesting that they were running away from Vang, a 36-year-old truck driver from St. Paul, Minn.

"It will be very difficult to sell a jury on a self-defense claim, with several of the victims being shot in the back. It strains the self-defense theory," said Ronald Carlson, a University of Georgia law school professor.

However, Carlson said it was Vang's best chance.

"That theory, combined with the defense that he had a reasonable and honest fear that the nature of the threats was directed toward his race, made it reasonable for him to conclude that he was in mortal danger. That's the best defense that could be taken, given the circumstances," he said.

In March, Vang contacted a reporter from the Chicago Tribune and said that he was trying to defend himself and his race when he opened fire on the hunters. In a phone interview and subsequent letters to reporter Colleen Mastony, Vang said he felt remorse for shooting some of the hunters but felt that some of the victims "deserved" what happened because they had threatened him and used racial slurs.