NEWS

Is this case Wisconsin's first anti-Hmong hate charge?

Chris Mueller
USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

JUNCTION CITY - An 80-year-old Junction City man accused of aiming and firing a gun near his neighbor could be the first person ever charged with a hate crime against a Hmong person in Wisconsin.

Police responded to a report of a gunshot during a dispute between neighbors in Junction City.

Hmong leaders, national nonprofit organizations and county prosecutors suspect the charge is the first of its kind, although it’s difficult to know for sure. The Wisconsin Department of Justice doesn’t specifically track the number of hate crimes committed against Hmong people in the state.

The state's records show police in Wisconsin have reported a total of 84 hate crimes involving a person with an anti-Asian bias in the last 20 years. The records don't specify a victim's ethnicity beyond Asian and don't necessarily reflect the number of cases that resulted in a hate crime charge in court. The records also date back only to 1997, omitting any cases from the first 10 years the state's hate crime law was in effect.

But no expert interviewed for this story recalls a previous case like that of Henry Kaminski, who was arrested March 6 in Junction City after a stand-off with heavily armed police officers who surrounded his home. Police responded after one of his neighbors, a Hmong woman, reported that she heard a loud noise after stepping onto her porch, then saw him standing nearby with a gun, according to a criminal complaint.

Kaminski couldn’t see her when he fired the first shot, but he pointed a silver handgun at her and yelled when she went to investigate the noise, and she felt “she was going to die right then,” the complaint says. Kaminski turned slightly and fired again into a nearby snowbank, where police later recovered a bullet.

Kaminski faces multiple charges, but could receive more severe penalties on two counts — second-degree recklessly endangering safety and intentionally pointing a firearm at a person — because they were charged as hate crimes by Portage County District Attorney Louis Molepske.

While having his blood drawn at a hospital after his arrest, Kaminski told nurses he “had problems with the Hmongs,” that he thought Hmong people were criminals and that Hmong residents of Junction City were poaching animals, according to a criminal complaint filed March 24 in Portage County.

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Tou Ger Bennett Xiong, an activist with the Coalition for Community Relations in St. Paul, Minnesota, didn’t know of any prior cases in Wisconsin in which a person was charged with a hate crime against a Hmong person. Bennett Xiong was one of several Hmong leaders contacted by USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin who couldn't recall another case.

“It’s a moral victory in the sense that it sets a precedent,” Bennett Xiong said.

Kaminski

Three other organizations — the Wisconsin District Attorneys Association, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center — also didn’t know of any prior cases where the state had charged a suspect with an anti-Hmong hate crime.

Molepske said he didn’t consider the victim’s ethnicity when he filed the hate crime charges against Kaminski and didn’t know if the case was in fact the first involving a Hmong victim in the state.

The law in Wisconsin allows for more severe penalties if a person selects the victim based on race, religion, color, disability, sexual orientation, national origin and ancestry. The Wisconsin statute was debated in the courts for years before the U.S. Supreme Court decided in 1993 the law didn’t violate free speech.

High-profile cases with no hate crime charges

Kaminski’s case isn't the first time an incident of violence directed at Hmong people in Wisconsin has ended up in court.

In 2007, James Nichols, then a 28-year-old from Peshtigo, was charged with the killing of Cha Vang, a 30-year-old Hmong man from Green Bay, while the two men were hunting squirrels in the woods near Peshtigo.

Vang’s body was found covered by a log and leaves, and an autopsy later revealed he had been shot with a shotgun and stabbed multiple times, according to court documents. Nichols was convicted of second-degree intentional homicide, hiding a corpse and being a felon in possession of a firearm after a week-long trial and was sentenced to a total of 69 years in prison.

Nichols, during an interview with police, described Hmong people as mean and said they “kill everything,” court documents say. Those statements, along with testimony about Nichols’ supposed prejudice against Hmong people, were used by prosecutors during the trial.

But Nichols wasn’t technically charged with a hate crime, despite an effort by many in the Hmong community to get prosecutors to go down that path, Bennett Xiong said.

A more recent case Bennett Xiong said he is watching closely involves 40-year-old Dan Popp, a Milwaukee man accused of killing a Hmong couple and their neighbor. Popp was charged in March 2016 with multiple counts of homicide, but those charges don't include the hate crime enhancer, according to court records.

‘Not there yet’

The victim in Kaminski’s case, Mai Houa Moua, wasn’t hurt, but she and her husband, Nhia Vue Yang, worried about their safety after Kaminski was released when he posted a $5,000 cash bond the day after his arrest.

“I’ve been living here for a while and never had any intention to bother anyone,” Moua said in a March 7 interview with USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin. “I just don’t know why he would do such a thing.”

The case against Kaminski hasn’t concluded and he has yet to be convicted of any crimes. His next court appearance is an arraignment scheduled for May 22, during which Kaminski will likely enter a not guilty plea to the charges.

Many in the Hmong community faced resentment — or worse — when they began settling across the country decades ago, Bennett Xiong said. They’ve grown far less likely to ignore acts of hate more recently, as younger generations have become more outspoken about the challenges they face.

Thai Vue is the executive director of the Wisconsin United Coalition of Mutual Assistance Associations, an organization that oversees local agencies that provide assistance to Hmong people across the state. As more Hmong people start to work in government or get involved in local politics, Vue said, the level of trust in those systems should continue to grow.

“We’re getting started,” he said. “It’s not there yet.”

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A Hmong youth group led a protest before Kaminski was charged, urging Molepske, the district attorney, to treat the incident in Junction City as a hate crime. The protest drew a crowd of more than a 100 people, who marched about a mile from a local park to the courthouse in downtown Stevens Point.

The protest, similar to others in recent years, reflected a level of distrust in the justice system still felt by many Hmong people, Bennett Xiong said. They’re trying to send a message, he said, that many of them believe will benefit the entire community.

“It’s really about violence prevention,” he said.

Chris Mueller: 715-345-2251 or christopher.mueller@gannettwisconsin.com; on Twitter@AtChrisMueller .