Minneapolis reaches $700K settlement with family detained after 2019 police shooting

Locked in two squad cars on a subzero night, Chiasher Vue's children could only look on helplessly as police surrounded their Minneapolis home with their father — armed with a rifle and in the throes of a mental health crisis — inside.

Chamee Vue tried in vain to reassure her father over the phone; he said he was confused and scared. He stepped onto the porch and raised the rifle in the direction of the officers. Gunfire erupted.

In another squad car, sons Hailee and Nou Vue screamed and slammed their bodies against the doors as they heard chatter over the police radio to "launch." They wept as they watched paramedics move their father's body before they were driven to City Hall, where they were held for hours before being told he had died.

A federal judge ruled the police were justified in their split-second decision to shoot Vue. But it was announced Friday that the city of Minneapolis had paid the Vue family $700,000 to settle their lawsuit alleging police had illegally and unconstitutionally detained them.

Minneapolis police have since amended department policy on the handling of witnesses, saying they must be treated in a "constitutional" manner. A police spokesperson said the policy change was unrelated to the case. But the Vue siblings, ages 17 to 29 at the time, look on the change as their only consolation. They say their father would still be alive if police had let them approach and calm him down that night in 2019.

"I couldn't get out of the car, couldn't give him reassurance that everything would be okay," Chamee said.

Hailee said he wants the Hmong community to understand what happened to his family, and for their case to be instructive for future policing.

"I just don't want any other family to go through what the four of us went through," he said.

'Don't everybody run at him'

Chiasher Vue fled Laos after the country's civil war ended in 1975, and lived in a Thai refugee camp before resettling in Minnesota. A married father of seven, he spoke little English and lived on Thomas Avenue in north Minneapolis at the time of his death.

On Dec. 14, 2019, the Vue family gathered for a late dinner. Deep into a party with drinking and karaoke, family members said, Chiasher's energy took a dive. He suffered from untreated depression and mental illness, and Hailee recalled him complaining about his sons' cigarette smoking and education. A toxicology report later determined his blood alcohol level was 0.20. One quarrel led to another.

Around 3 a.m., Chiasher fired several shots at a wall inside the house, and son Benjamin Vue called 911. When officers arrived, they told the Vue children to move from their own car to two squads.

"Look, my dad is mentally ill ... Just let me and my little sister go talk to him. We can talk him out," Nou Vue said to an unidentified officer, according to squad car footage. "You're not getting out of the squad. Stop asking," replied the officer.

Sgt. Troy Carlson, the Fourth Precinct patrol supervisor on the overnight shift, requested a negotiator to handle a barricaded suspect. In the meantime, Carlson asked two Hmong officers — who had no training as negotiators — to try to coax Chiasher out.

Using the PA system, one officer promised Chiasher that if he left the house with his hands up, he would only have to speak with a Hmong officer. Chiasher emerged briefly but quickly retreated inside when neither officer was there to meet him.

"I remember telling the other officers, if he comes out again, don't everybody run at him," Carlson told the BCA, according to the case file. "I didn't want the guy to come out and have 20 people yelling at him."

A trained negotiator arrived on the scene just as Chiasher reappeared with his rifle pointed out the door. Shots were fired and Chiasher was mortally wounded, 40 minutes after his son's 911 call.

Alone four hours

After the shooting, the four Vue siblings were placed inside separate squad cars and taken to City Hall. They pleaded with police to see their father at North Memorial Health, attend to their grandmother or go home to their families, according to squad footage. They were instead told they had to be interviewed by an investigator.

"So basically you forced me to get inside this ... car and then forced me to stay," Nou said, according to the footage. "I'm sorry you feel that way," the officer replied.

At City Hall, the siblings were searched, their phones were confiscated and they were locked into separate interrogation rooms, where they were left alone for more than four hours. They paced, scribbled notes on the white board and sat with their heads buried in their arms.

It was about 9 a.m. — six hours after the shooting — when James Reyerson and Scott Mueller with the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension arrived to interview them. The BCA is responsible for investigating police shootings.

The agents asked about Vue's mental health, whether he argued often with them, what kind of guns he had in the house and if his behavior had changed in the days leading up the shooting. The longest interview lasted about 15 minutes.

That's when the agents told the siblings that Vue was dead. "I apologize for even having to ask this, but is there anything we can do or say to your other siblings that will make any of this easier?" Mueller asked Chamee.

Those words rang insincere to her, she said: "You come and question me first to get anything out of me … before you give me your condolences?"

At one point, a Minneapolis officer asked the BCA agents if the siblings could be reunited. The agents insisted they remain separated while the interviews were done.

It was 10 a.m. when the siblings were permitted to go home. Two days later, the 10 officers involved in the shooting returned to give voluntary interviews with lawyers present.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and police officials declined multiple interview requests for this story.

Policy change

U.S. District Judge Ann Montgomery dismissed the Vue family's claims for wrongful death. But she allowed their claims that Minneapolis police and the BCA agents had unlawfully imprisoned them for hours against their will.

Last November, interim Minneapolis Police Chief Amelia Huffman revised department policy on the treatment of witnesses. Police spokesperson Garrett Parten said the change was done "to provide more clarity."

The Vue family's lawyer, Je Yon Jung, blasted that statement as "disingenuous." She said she learned of the policy during the deposition of an officer who claimed it was in direct response to the Vue case.

"Anybody can see that the special order prohibits every single unlawful action that was taken against the Vue children," Jung said.

The Vue family claimed Minneapolis police had taken less care with Chiasher's life than others in mental crisis, with racial bias playing a role. The police supervisor didn't wait for a trained negotiator to arrive before ordering the Hmong officers to engage Chiasher, Jung said. The Minneapolis and St. Paul police departments have 15 and 16 trained crisis negotiators respectively, but none speak Hmong.

Assistant Minneapolis City Attorney Tracey Fussy wrote in a legal filing that it would have been "unconscionable" for officers to leave the Vue siblings outside in the freezing cold. Jung countered they had been sitting in their own heated vehicle.

"Nobody investigated the fact that these people were unlawfully detained for six hours," said Jung. "And while we could not sue the state [in federal court] … the BCA was very much in charge of holding the four people and making sure that they stayed."

In a statement, BCA spokesperson Bonney Bowman said Reyerson and Mueller didn't investigate the Vue family's false imprisonment allegations because they weren't aware the family had filed a complaint with the city. While the BCA always seeks to interview witnesses in an investigation, she wrote, "a person who is not charged with a crime or being held on probable cause is free to go at any time."

Chamee and Hailee Vue said they want Hmong people to understand they can't be detained for witnessing a police shooting. The new policy announced by the Minneapolis police makes that indisputable, Chamee said.

"My community, especially the elders ... don't really understand their rights, what's lawful, what's unlawful," she said.