How a War Over Weed and Water Led to a Deadly Police Shooting
Mount Shasta Vista was burning and Soobleej Kaub Hawj needed to get his family out. It was June 28 and a massive blaze known as the Lava Fire, sparked by lightning, was tearing through the rural Northern California neighborhood, scorching acre after acre of high desert scrubland, along with the ramshackle homes of farmers and greenhouses full of marijuana plants.
The trip to Mount Shasta Vista, an unincorporated subdivision in Siskiyou County, near the old gold-mining town of Yreka, was supposed to be a summer getaway for the 35-year-old Hawj, his wife, Lee, and their three kids. Theyd driven up from their home in Kansas City, Kansas, to visit friends and relatives in the areas ethnic Hmong community. But now with flames encroaching and smoke billowing in the night sky, Hawj and his family were forced to flee for their lives.
Hawj drove a white GMC pickup with his dog Silk riding shotgun. Lee and the kidstwo daughters and a son, ages 7, 14, and 16trailed in a separate car.
A few minutes after 8:40 p.m., Hawj and his family hit a police checkpoint on the highway at one of the entrances to Mount Shasta Vista, which was under an evacuation order.
Its still unclear exactly what happened next, but according to the Siskiyou County Sheriffs Office, Hawj tried to make a turn that would have taken him through the evacuation zone. Sheriffs deputies, cops from a small town nearby, and state game agents blocked his route.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7eww8/how-a-war-over-weed-and-water-led-to-a-deadly-police-shooting
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American horror story