from here:
http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/nov04/278618.aspA spiritual leader, jailed in killings
Shooting confuses Vang's friends
By VIKKI ORTIZ and NAHAL TOOSI
vortiz@journalsentinel.comPosted: Nov. 25, 2004
A man who authorities say admitted gunning down six hunters in northern Wisconsin was a respected spiritual leader in the Hmong community who comforted the sick and dying.
The week before Chai Soua Vang, 36, went hunting on opening weekend in Wisconsin, he performed a funeral ritual in St. Paul.
"Other people think he's a killer - but in our culture, we just think he's a regular person," Ber Xiong of St. Paul said through his son, adding in English, "He's my friend."
In Stockton, Calif., where Vang lived in the 1990s, neighbors remembered him as a nice man who presided over a busy household that was often filled with visiting family members. He drove a semitrailer truck, and sometimes a bulk cement truck, so he was often away from home, but Vang told a neighbor that he wanted to move to Minnesota, seeking a better life for his wife and children.
Pheng Lo, executive director of the Lao Family Community of Stockton, remembered Vang as an outgoing guy with a friendly face. Which makes it so difficult for Lo to understand how the man he knew could be accused of shooting eight hunters and killing six of them.
"I said something must really, really have happened to him. He was so mad or angry, or maybe he had mental problems lately," Lo said.
Friends in disbelief
In St. Paul, Xiong, 42, said he felt confused and heartbroken after learning of his friend's arrest this week because he could not imagine him killing anyone.
"I thought, 'How could the problems happen so fast? He never had any problems before,' " Xiong said through the translation of his 14-year-old son, Dang Xiong.
Similar disbelief was echoed by some of Vang's St. Paul neighbors Thursday, as they gathered for Thanksgiving meals on the same block where the accused man's two-story yellow house stood with uncollected mail piling up in a basket on the porch.
"He's a nice guy," said next-door neighbor Koua Vang, who is not related. "He lived a quiet life."
Authorities said Vang, 36, told them he opened fire with an SKS semiautomatic rifle on a hunting party in Sawyer County on Sunday after being told he was trespassing on private land. Vang was sitting in a tree stand on private property when confronted. Witnesses said he climbed down from the stand, removed the scope from his rifle and began firing at the hunters who tried to flee but were shot, some in the back, as they ran through the forest.
Vang has given authorities a sharply different account of what happened, saying the shooting didn't start until after a tense, racially charged confrontation in which a hunter fired at him first. Vang is being held in Sawyer County Jail on cash bail of $2.5 million. Charges are expected to be filed Monday.
Wanting to know more
The conflicting stories have left Xiong hungry for more information.
"I want to know what happened. Did they say something bad to him for something to happen?" Xiong asked in his own English. "I'm so sad. I'm so sorry."
Xiong said he first met Vang in 2000 when a co-worker, who is a relative of Vang's, invited him along on a hunting trip. Xiong said Vang's passion for hunting was immediately apparent. He bagged a deer almost effortlessly and had a strong command of the Department of Natural Resources rules and regulations.
Although Xiong prefers to hunt in Minnesota because he thinks it's easier to differentiate between public and private land, Vang mostly liked to hunt in Wisconsin because he said he was familiar with the land divisions, Xiong said.
During one hunting trip to Green Lake, Wis., Xiong and Vang were issued $244 citations for trespassing. But Xiong said they believed the warden was mistaken because they were on public land.
The citation did not ruin the mood of the trip for Xiong, Vang and Xiong's then-12-year-old son, Dang, and they feasted on a homemade chicken and rice lunch Vang had packed, Xiong said.
If Xiong couldn't join Vang on hunting trips, Vang would stop by with packaged venison to share with his friends and neighbors.
A religious leader
In time, Xiong and Vang became friends outside of hunting, and Xiong said he learned his friend was a shaman, or respected spiritual leader for the Hmong community in the St. Paul-Minneapolis area.
While Vang was living in Stockton, Calif., he often participated in religious activities at his home, said a neighbor.
Gerzon Dominguez said he often heard the traditional handbells used in Hmong ceremonies coming from Vang's home. One time he remembers the family slaughtering a goat in their yard, another shaman practice that is common before traditional Hmong funerals.
Dominguez, 52, recalled Vang telling him that homes and land were cheaper in Minnesota and he figured he could get a better, higher-paying job to support his family.
"He was really the head of the family. His word is their word," Dominguez said in an interview Thursday afternoon at his duplex next to the light-blue duplex where Vang lived in the 1990s.
The Stockton neighborhood is culturally mixed with a number of Hmong families, though some neighbors said there aren't as many now because some Hmong families, like the Vangs, have moved away in recent years.
Vang was active in Stockton's Hmong community, volunteering his time for youth activities, Lo said. He helped organize youth sports games and leagues in soccer, volleyball and karate. He also arranged field trips for children and volunteered to help in the community's annual Hmong New Year celebration.
Hmong shaman are similar to medicine men in American Indian culture - people blessed with the gift to communicate with ancestors, said Lo Neng Kiatoukaysy, executive director of the Hmong/American Friendship Association in Milwaukee. They are called upon to perform spiritual ceremonies for sick or dying people in the community.
Kiatoukaysy said he could not confirm that Vang was a shaman because there is no official training or certification required for the esteemed title. But he said it was likely because in Hmong culture, every community is blessed with about five to 10 shaman.
"That means he must be really respected in the community," Kiatoukaysy said.
more craziness in Wisconsin all i got to say.
