{"id":1517837,"date":"2022-06-15T18:49:07","date_gmt":"2022-06-15T22:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1517837"},"modified":"2022-06-15T18:49:28","modified_gmt":"2022-06-15T22:49:28","slug":"four-police-officers-cleared-of-charges-in-shooting-that-some-said-was-racially-motivated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/four-police-officers-cleared-of-charges-in-shooting-that-some-said-was-racially-motivated\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Police Officers Cleared Of Charges In Shooting That Some Said Was Racially Motivated"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffour-police-officers-cleared-of-charges-in-shooting-that-some-said-was-racially-motivated%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1517837&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p class=\"p1\">Four police officers will not be charged after a man was shot and killed during an evacuation last summer when he pointed a loaded weapon at them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">An officer who was near the gun said it was \u201cthe darkest hole I\u2019ve ever seen in my life pointing directly at me,\u201d according to a nine-page letter Siskiyou County District Attorney Kirk Andrus gave the officers\u2019 bosses, which told them he was clearing the officers of charges.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Soobleej Kaub Hawj, 35, was stopped at a checkpoint near the California-Oregon border in Siskiyou County. On June 24, officials were evacuating the area as the Lava Fire was burning toward thousands of the area\u2019s illegal cannabis farms.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The Sacramento Bee <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sacbee.com\/news\/local\/article262521522.html\">reported<\/a> that Hawj\u2019s blood had methamphetamine and amphetamines in it. He also had illegal weapons in his truck and a $50,000 warrant from Colorado out for his arrest. Court records also reportedly revealed that he was wanted for firearms and marijuana crimes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">During an evacuation of the area, Hawj pointed a loaded gun at authorities, drove his truck in their direction, and ended up dying in the exchange of gunshots, according to Andrus.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">In the letter, Andrus detailed how officers were instructing drivers how to depart the region, telling them to go west. When Hawj got close to the checkpoint, he tried to turn east instead, prompting authorities to attempt to gain his attention and get him to stop.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cOne of the officers made eye contact as the truck got close enough, and he slapped the hood to get Hawj\u2019s attention, Andrus said. That\u2019s when the officer said Hawj grabbed a .45 caliber handgun and pointed it at him, Andrus said,\u201d per the Bee.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Andrus noted how Hawj might have misunderstood the police officers\u2019 actions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cHe had a cash crop in the back of his truck that he apparently was willing to defend,\u201d Andrus wrote. \u201cHe may have had the misapprehension that residents were being funneled into an area where they would be searched for marijuana. He would have been wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Last summer, the incident became a story across the country that some portrayed as one in which officers used too much force, alleging that the shootout was racially motivated in an area that had been trying to rid the region of the illegal farms. Many of the cannabis farms are operated by Hmong people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The county and authorities in the area had been cracking down on the illegal cannabis growing, and Siskiyou County had prohibited the growing of cannabis on a large scale. Last year, officials estimated that the Big Springs region still had around 5,000 to 6,000 greenhouses cultivating marijuana. The rules imposed on the farms were already the center of racism allegations, and some said the shooting was part of a racist attempt to get the cannabis farms out of the region, as well as the Asian Americans who work on them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Asian American protesters gathered in the area after the shooting, with one activist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kare11.com\/article\/news\/local\/kare11-sunrise\/soobleej-kaub-hawj-siskiyou-county-california-minnesota-hmong-community\/89-9d3627ab-f9f5-4655-a32f-dcb8e0c70043\">saying<\/a>, \u201cHe was in his car running from a wildfire with his wife and three kids behind him so why did he end up dead?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Andrus, however, pressed that Hawj\u2019s decisions alone led to the shooting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Four police officers will not be charged after a man was shot and killed during an evacuation last summer when he pointed a loaded weapon at them. An officer who was near the gun said it was \u201cthe darkest hole I\u2019ve ever seen in my life pointing directly at me,\u201d according to a nine-page letter &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":1517867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1517837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1517837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1517837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1517837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1517867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1517837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1517837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1517837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}