page_title: Shooting of Bich Cau Thi Tran
section_title: Shooting
hierarchical_section_title: Shooting of Bich Cau Thi Tran / Shooting
caption_attribution_description: Everyone in Vietnam seems to use these carbon steel vegetable peelers. I bought one for US$ 1, I'm sure I overpaid by a factor of 3 at least.
context_page_description: The shooting of Bich Cau Thi Tran occurred in San Jose, California, on July 13, 2003. She was fatally shot by a San Jose Police officer in her home. Tran was wielding an Asian vegetable peeler at two police officers and was then shot once in the chest. The incident led to controversy among the Vietnamese American community in San Jose, accusing the officer of using excessive force. The family of Tran was awarded $1.8 million in a lawsuit filed against the city of San Jose.
context_section_description: At 6:00 p.m., Bich Cau Thi Tran was heard and seen by neighbors yelling in Vietnamese and waving her arms while roaming around the streets of their neighborhood. According to a neighbor, Tran was "marching zombielike down the sidewalk" and ignoring her youngest son, who was wandering in traffic at the intersection of Taylor and 12th Streets crying and asking for "his mommy." The neighbor told Tran to "go take care of your little babies," and Tran's boyfriend, Dang Quang Bui, took her into their family's home and drew the blinds. The neighbor phoned the police to report the wandering toddler, which prompted a dispatch to the scene to check on the welfare of the toddler. Tran's family stated that she had tried to enter an accidentally-locked bedroom from the outside, through the window, and had not noticed that one of her sons had followed her outside.
  While officers were en route, Tran was heard by neighbors screaming in her home, prompting more calls to the police as a suspected domestic violence issue. Two officers arrived on scene in separate patrol cars. Officer Chad Marshall and Officer Tom Mun arrived at the East Taylor Street apartment complex where Tran lived with her boyfriend and the couple's two sons. The officers heard Tran acting distraught and pounding and screaming inside.
  The officers pounded on the door for several minutes, and Mun asked Marshall if they should break it down. Tran's boyfriend, Dang Quang Bui, then opened the door and pointed the officers to the kitchen, where Tran was, stating that "she's crazy." Tran was holding a 10-inch-long (250 mm) Asian vegetable peeler, a dao bào, that had a 6-inch (150 mm) blade and was about 5 to 7 feet (1.5 to 2.1 m) away from the officers. Initial police reports stated that after police entered the apartment, Tran screamed at the officers to get out, and when they did not, she retrieved what looked like a cleaver out of a drawer and waved it at them. Tran's family disputed that account, saying that she had already been gesturing angrily with the utensil within the kitchen before officers arrived, as she had been employing it to try to pry the locked bedroom door open. Mun would later testify that she screamed at the officers to go away while shaking the raised blade, which Mun said appeared to be a kitchen knife. A knife expert would later testify the peeler "would have been able to cut a piece of meat". Mun believed she was about to throw the blade at either the officers, Bui, or the couple's two sons, all standing nearby. Marshall described the knife as a cleaver and said he thought she was raising it over her head in preparation to throw it at him. Within three or "seven to eight" seconds of entering the apartment, Marshall responded by firing one gunshot into Tran's chest, killing her.
  According to Bui's testimony, Marshall did not warn Tran or demand that she drop the weapon before opening fire, although Mun said Marshall twice ordered Tran to "drop the knife." Bui also testified that Tran was gesturing in frustration at a locked bedroom door with the peeler, which she had tried to pry open before police arrived on scene. Bui testified that Tran had exhibited symptoms of mental illness after their second child was born in 2000, but would often stop taking her anti-psychotic medication because it made her tired. Bui related several incidents that occurred in 2001 requiring police responses to Tran's actions.
  Officer Christopher Hardin responded to the scene just as the shooting occurred. He entered the apartment immediately after hearing gunfire, and described what he saw: Tran was lying on her back, "slowly shifting her head and limbs and gasping for breath" with Marshall's eyes "very large ... [looking] sad and scared at the same time" as Tran's sons were "screaming and clutching onto [Marshall's] legs." A responding paramedic, Maria Rios, testified that her dispatchers told her to wait outside the apartment for six minutes while police "secured" the scene. Rios would pronounce Tran dead fifteen minutes after the shooting. A pathologist, Dr. Richard Mason
caption: A Vietnamese-style vegetable peeler
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