DA clears officers who killed fire evacuee at one of California’s largest marijuana grows

The four officers who shot and killed a man at a wildfire evacuation checkpoint last summer outside a massive marijuana cultivation site in rural Northern California won’t face charges, the county’s district attorney said Tuesday.

Officers killed Soobleej Kaub Hawj, 35, of Kansas City at a checkpoint outside the small community of Big Springs in Siskiyou County, not far from the California-Oregon border. On the night of June 24, authorities had been evacuating the region as the lightning-sparked Lava Fire burned toward the thousands of illegal cannabis farms in the area.

That’s when Hawj — who was high on methamphetamine, had a cache of illegal firearms and an out-of-state warrant for his arrest — pointed a loaded handgun at officers, rammed his truck toward them and died in a hail of gunfire, according to Siskiyou County District Attorney Kirk Andrus.

He sent out a nine-page letter Tuesday that outlined his findings to the officers’ supervisors at the Sheriff’s Office, the Etna Police Department and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The letter details a tense roadblock-turned-standoff with an armed and wanted Hawj who, by all accounts, was bent on disobeying the officer’s commands. Andrus’s letter counters a narrative that gained nationwide traction last summer that claimed the shooting was excessive force and motivated by racism in a community that had for years been trying to get rid of the illegal pot farms, many of which are run by Hmong residents.

The letter says officers were directing a line of cars and trucks leaving the area to turn west onto County Road A-12, the main thoroughfare out of Big Springs.

As Hawj’s pickup approached the checkpoint, he attempted to turn east. Officers waved their arms, trying to get Hawj’s attention and make him stop. One of the officers made eye contact as the truck got close enough, and he slapped the hood to get Hawj’s attention, Andrus said.

That’s when the officer said Hawj grabbed a .45 caliber handgun and pointed it at him, Andrus said.

One officer, who was just six feet from the handgun, told investigators it was “the darkest hole I’ve ever seen in my life pointing directly at me,” according to the letter Andrus sent the officers’ supervisors announcing he was exonerating them in the shooting.

The officers at the checkpoint opened fire, and Hawj’s truck lurched forward. The truck nearly smashed an officer before it crashed into a Department of Fish and Wildlife game warden’s pickup. The officer barely got out of the way, Andrus said.

Once they stopped firing, officers would pull a loaded .45 caliber Colt 1911 handgun off Hawj’s lap before pulling him out of the pickup to perform CPR. At least one spent .45 caliber shell casing was found inside the pickup, Andrus said.

Investigators also found two assault rifles in the backseat. One of them was an AR-15-style rifle with a 50-round drum with 24 rounds inside it. It also had a silencer. The other was an AK-47-style rifle with a loaded 30 round magazine. There was another Taurus 9 mm holding 16 rounds in a backpack on the backseat.

In the pickup’s bed were large plastic totes filled with 132 pounds of marijuana, which Andrus estimated was valued at up to $175,000.

An autopsy found that Hawj died as a result of suffering three gunshot wounds to the head. He also had wounds in his upper chest and his arms and legs. He had both methamphetamine and amphetamines in his blood, Andrus said.

Hawj was wanted on a $50,000 warrant out of Colorado. Andrus didn’t specify the charges, but court records show he was wanted for marijuana and firearms felonies out of Mesa County.

Shooting became #StopAsianHate rally cry

The shooting sparked a national outcry, with some claiming it was part of a racially motivated campaign to rid the area of illegal cannabis grows and the Asian Americans who tend them.

Siskiyou County had already banned large-scale cannabis cultivation. Still, authorities last year estimated there were 5,000 to 6,000 greenhouses growing marijuana in the Big Springs area, primarily tended by people of Hmong or of Chinese descent.

For months before the shooting, the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office enforced local ordinances aimed at eliminating the marijuana farms. The county prohibited water trucks from delivering water to the grow sites, many of which don’t have wells, electricity or sewage service.

The county’s ordinances, which coincided with the nationwide Stop Asian Hate campaign, triggered complaints from the growers that Siskiyou County’s mostly white leadership and law enforcement officers were targeting the pot farmers because of their race.

The ban on water deliveries prompted the growers to file a still-ongoing civil rights suit in federal court. The growers alleged the ordinances infringed on their ability to provide water for their basic needs such as bathing and cooking.

After the shooting, a group of Asian American activists traveled to Siskiyou County to protest. One of them held a multi-day hunger strike in Yreka, the county seat.

“He was in his car running from a wildfire with his wife and three kids behind him so why did he end up dead?” an activist from Minnesota named Tou Ger Xiong told reporters.

The Bee couldn’t reach members of the local Hmong community or their attorneys Tuesday for comment.

Andrus in his letter Tuesday downplayed any suggestion that the shooting was the result of law enforcement bias or that officers were targeting Hmong residents who were breaking the law.

Andrus said Hawj’s actions alone prompted the shooting. Law enforcement and firefighters at that checkpoint were only focused on getting people away from the fire that was barreling toward them, Andrus said.

Even if they wanted to, there was no way to screen every vehicle leaving the area for cannabis, though Hawj might have thought that’s what the officers were doing, Andrus said.

“He had a cash crop in the back of his truck that he apparently was willing to defend,” Andrus wrote. “He may have had the misapprehension that residents were being funneled into an area where they would be searched for marijuana. He would have been wrong.”

This story was originally published June 14, 2022 at 7:27 PM.