One year after a St. Paul officer fatally shot 65-year-old Yia Xiong, his family awaits a charging decision

Mara H. Gottfried, Pioneer Press
·5 min read
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One year and a day since a St. Paul police officer fatally shot a 65-year-old man, his family said Monday they’re still waiting for a decision from prosecutors on whether to charge the officer.

“We used to wake up every day believing that surely today will be the day that the county attorney will announce charges against the officers,” said Yia Xiong’s daughter-in-law Cindy Lor. “But over 365 of these days have passed and we don’t know if that day will ever come anymore. Instead we find ourselves asking, ‘Why? Why doesn’t my father’s life matter?'”

A Pioneer Press review found this is the longest time for a charging decision in a fatal officer-involved shooting since at least 2016 in Ramsey County, based on a look at 10 previous cases investigated by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and decided by Ramsey County Attorney John Choi.

Ramsey County Attorney’s Office spokesman Dennis Gerhardstein said each use of deadly force case “is unique for many reasons, including, but not limited to, the circumstances surrounding the incident and the often-voluminous amounts of investigative data presented to our office for review.

“While we always conduct our reviews as expeditiously as possible, we will never forsake thoroughness in favor of a rushed decision,” he said in a Monday statement. “I know that view is shared by our justice partners at the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office, who are also reviewing the case with us.”

BCA says he held knife

On Feb. 11, 2023, at 4:55 p.m., police responded to the Winslow Commons apartment building on the 100 block of South Western Avenue near West Seventh Street after receiving 911 calls. One caller reported they were having a birthday party for their daughter at the building and a man “with a machete … keeps coming in and out” of a community room where the party was, according to a 911 transcript.

Another caller reported all her grandchildren were in the community room, the man was “handing them money and they wouldn’t take it.”

Snowdon Herr, Justice for Yia Xiong Coalition chairperson, has said it’s part of their culture for elders to give money to children.

One of the callers told a 911 operator that her husband was armed, but had put his weapon down.

“We’ll never know if this (was) why Yia Xiong equipped himself with a knife to protect himself,” Herr said in April. “We don’t get to hear Yia’s story.”

Officers told Xiong to drop a knife, but he didn’t respond and turned to unlock his apartment door, according to the BCA. Xiong went inside his apartment and the door began to close.

“The officers kicked the door to stop it from fully shutting and ordered him to come out,” the BCA said in a statement at the time. “They then backed away from the door and down the short hallway. Xiong opened the door and stepped into the hallway, knife still in-hand.”

The BCA said Xiong was holding a 16-inch knife when St. Paul officer Abdirahman Dahir shot him with a rifle and officer Noushue Cha deployed a Taser. Xiong died from multiple gunshot wounds. The officers’ body cameras were on.

Xiong was a disabled Hmong veteran “who saved American lives” during the Vietnam War, Lor said. He was deaf in one ear from the war and didn’t speak English, she and Herr said.

The Justice for Yia Xiong Coalition has called for both Dahir and Cha, who remain St. Paul officers, to be fired and criminally charged.

‘Justice delayed’

Xiong’s family and members of the justice coalition held signs at a Monday press conference with the words “months with no justice” beneath the updated number: “12.”

“In this case, justice delayed truly is justice denied,” said Michelle Gross, Communities United Against Police Brutality president. “There’s no excuse for this lengthy delay and making this family wait anxiously for an answer.”

Lor said her world came crashing down a year ago, when she received a call “that the very people who we’re taught to trust, the police, shot and killed” Xiong.

“He was our dad,” Lor said. “He was my kids’ loving grandpa.”

Lor said she hopes Xiong’s memory “serves as a reminder of the urgency for change, a change that ensures no other family has to endure the pain, sadness and heartache that have became our constant companion since that day.”

A look at past cases

The Ramsey County attorney’s office announced in May that the BCA had formally presented its investigative file for prosecutorial review. The county attorney’s office also said at the time it has “a nationally recognized officer use of force expert to assist in the review of the evidence.”

In 2016, the Ramsey County attorney’s office began reviewing shootings by officers resulting in a death, rather than the past practice of presenting cases to a grand jury for a charging decision. In 10 cases since then, the average time between the date of a shooting and a charging decision by Choi was just over seven months, a Pioneer Press review found.

The previous longest time was 11 months when a Ramsey County sheriff’s deputy shot Darren Jahnke in Vadnais Heights in April 2017 after authorities said the 47-year-old disarmed another deputy.

The shortest time was 48 days, after an investigation determined William James Hughes, 43, pointed a gun at St. Paul officers, who shot him in St. Paul in August 2018. Choi found officers in the Hughes and Jahnke cases to be legally justified.

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