Slain Hmong hunter mourned

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Maikue Vang's sadness was laced with anger and frustration as a traditional three-day funeral began Saturday for her uncle, a Hmong hunter slain in Wisconsin this month.
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"A lot of people are confused and wondering, `Why did this happen to him?'" said Vang, who traveled from Fresno, Calif., for the funeral of Cha Vang, 30, a refugee who lived in Green Bay, Wis. "Hmong on the West Coast are wondering, `What is happening in the Midwest?'"

Vang's death has rekindled racial tensions on Wisconsin hunting lands just two years after a Hmong man shot and killed six white hunters there.

"It seems to me that this is a hate crime, just because of the way he died," said Joua Vang, of Fresno, whose husband was a cousin of Cha Vang.
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Vang's body was found partially covered by leaves and debris on Jan. 6 in a wildlife refuge near Green Bay. Authorities charged James Nichols, 28, with murder after an autopsy showed Vang had been stabbed several times and shot in the head and torso.

Nichols, who is white, has told police that he was acting in self-defense. His public defender, Kent Hoffmann, did not immediately return a message left at his office on Saturday.
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Wisconsin, Minnesota and California are home to the largest populations of Hmong, an ethnic minority that fled Laos after the Vietnam War.

Dozens of Hmong residents streamed into the St. Paul funeral home on a frigid Saturday morning. Cha Vang's wife, Pang Vue, sat in a chair by her husband's body, staring straight ahead and wiping her eyes as other mourners wailed.

In the entryway, mourners grabbed copies of the newspaper Hmong Today, with a headline that read, "Wisconsin Hunter Killed: Hate Crime or `Accident'?" Graphic pictures of Vang's body, stitched up after the autopsy, hung on a wall at the funeral home.
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In a statement released through the funeral home, his family said, "We do not and will probably never know what happened that afternoon. The only thing that we know for sure is that Cha Vang is murdered and is no longer with us."

Cha Vang's confrontation with Nichols, who is from Peshtigo, Wis., came as the two were squirrel hunting.

According to a criminal complaint, Nichols gave several versions of what happened, saying at one point that Vang told him he was going to kill him. Vang's wife has said her husband spoke no English.

In the November 2004 slaying, which happened in Sawyer County in western Wisconsin, Chai Vang, no relation, shot six hunters after being accused of trespassing during a deer hunt. He said the white hunters shouted racial epithets and shot first, but survivors testified that he opened fire on the group. Chai Vang was sentenced to life in prison.
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