Sacramento, Calif. (AP) — The Siskiyou County District Attorney said four officers will not face criminal charges last summer for shooting and killing a man with a gun who tried to drive through a Northern California marijuana farm A nearby wildfire evacuation checkpoint. June 14.
Soobleej Kaub Hawj, 35, of Kansas City, Kansas, was driving a pickup truck loaded with guns and 132 pounds of marijuana when he ignored an order to turn west on the main road at a checkpoint on June 24 as a lightning-fueled fire threatened to The Greater Springs area near the Oregon border, said Rural District Attorney Kirk Andrews.
The fires forced thousands to flee. In a letter to law enforcement, Andrews said he had both amphetamine and methamphetamine in his system, and that he pulled a .45 caliber pistol at a law enforcement officer, causing other officers to open fire. The agency explained his decision, according to the Sacramento Bee.
Hawj was hit several times in the head, chest, arms and legs. In addition to the pistol and marijuana, investigators found another pistol and two assault rifles with large magazines, the letter said.
The shooting has sparked accusations that racism played a role in the shooting of Hodge, a member of the Hmong ethnic group.
Authorities said last year that the Mount Shasta Vista subdivision in the Big Springs area has as many as 6,000 greenhouses for illegally growing marijuana, mostly run by ethnic Hmong and ethnic Chinese.
The county has tried to crack down on illegal cultivation, in part by banning trucks to deliver water to Hmong farmers who operate illegally.
The growers sued, and last fall a federal judge issued a temporary injunction against it, saying the practice raised “serious questions” about racial discrimination and left growers without drinking water, bathing and growing food water source.
However, Andrews said in the letter that fire checkpoints were not used to search for cannabis, but only to get people out of fire-threatened areas. However, Hawj probably thought he would be stopped and searched, Andrus said.
“He has a cash crop in the back of his truck that he is clearly willing to defend,” Andrews wrote. “He may have misunderstood that residents were being concentrated into an area where they would be searched for marijuana. He would have been wrong.”
Hoy also has a warrant in Mesa County, Colorado, where he is wanted for marijuana and firearm felonies, the paper said.
