The city of Minneapolis agreed to a $700,000 settlement with family members who were locked inside two squad cars when police killed their father after officers refused their offers to try and help calm him down, reports The Guardian. A federal judge ruled that officers were justified in shooting 52-year-old Chiasher Vue after he pointed a rifle at them on Dec. 15, 2019. The family sued, arguing that police had illegally and unconstitutionally detained them. Chamee Vue and her brothers tried to intervene but weren’t allowed out of the police cars. “I couldn’t get out of the car, couldn’t give him reassurance that everything would be OK,” Chamee said. After the shooting, family members spent hours detained in interrogation rooms while police questioned them.
A language barrier contributed to the killing because Chiasher Vue spoke little English and few officers that night spoke Hmong. Hailee Vue, one of Chamee Vue’s brothers, said he wants the Hmong community to understand what happened to his family and for their case to be instructive for policing. Family members say Chiasher Vue was going through a mental health crisis and suffering with untreated depression on the night he was killed. Since Chiasher Vue’s killing, Minneapolis police have changed policy on handling witnesses to say they must be treated in a constitutional manner. A police spokesperson told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that the policy change wasn’t related to this case. The new policy makes it clearer that a person who has not been charged with a crime and isn’t being held on probable cause is free to leave at any time.