Minn. Police Officers Cleared in Fatal Shootout

Dec. 20, 2012
A grand jury has cleared St. Paul police officers Daniel King and Brian Wanschura in the fatal shooting of Chue Xiong of St. Paul in October.

A grand jury has cleared St. Paul police officers Daniel King and Brian Wanschura in the fatal shooting of Chue Xiong of St. Paul in October.

The jurors issued a "no bill" Wednesday, St. Paul Police Federation President Dave Titus said minutes after one of the officers called him to report the grand jury decision.

Xiong, 22, had raised a shotgun in a school parking lot at Payne and Minnehaha Avenues as officers arrived in a marked squad car. When Xiong fired at them, the officers shot back, killing him, police have said.

King was shot twice, once in the side near the bottom of his bulletproof vest and also in his forearm.

Xiong's family had reported that he stole a shotgun and a compound bow from a house on Flandrau Street, where he lived with his family, about 30 minutes before the shootout Oct. 23.

The shootout occurred in the parking lot of the Hope Community Academy charter school in the 700 block of Payne Avenue, just across the street from the Police Department's Eastern District office, in a neighborhood that Xiong knew well.

Xiong had been acting out of character in the weeks leading up to his death, his family said. He took his mother's car and drove north, leaving it near the Canadian border. Just hours before police shot him, Xiong shaved his shaggy hair to the scalp.

Titus said police had properly used deadly force.

"We're extremely lucky, very fortunate, that one if not two officers are not dead," he said.

In an unrelated case on the same day, narcotics suspect Victor T. Gaddy, 41, was fatally shot by St. Paul police. That case remains under investigation, as does another officer-involved shooting that killed Melvin Fletcher, 20, of Brooklyn Park, after a grocery store robbery Monday on Grand Avenue in St. Paul.

Copyright 2012 - Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

McClatchy-Tribune News Service

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