Final arguments today in Fong Lee trial
With just four witnesses ranging from a woman who heard the shots that killed Fong Lee to a $2,500 a day consultant hired by the city lawyers for the city of Minneapolis rested their defense of police Officer Jason Andersen on Tuesday afternoon.
Lawyers for both sides will deliver final arguments this morning in the wrongful death lawsuit Fong Lee’s parents filed against Andersen and the city after the 2024 shooting. District Judge Paul Magnuson will instruct the jury of eight men and four women in the law, and they’ll begin deliberations.
Tuesday was the trial’s fifth day of testimony, and it began with the plaintiffs presenting their 31st and final witness, the pathologist who did the autopsy on Fong Lee.
After the attorneys for the family, Michael Padden and Richard Hechter, rested their case, Assistant Minneapolis City Attorney James Moore asked the judge for a directed verdict in Andersen’s favor, arguing there wasn’t enough evidence to show the shooting was unjustified.
While Magnuson said "there are some issues" with the evidence, [عزيزي الزائر يتوجب عليك التسجيل لمشاهدة الرابط للتسجيل اضغط هنا] he said there was enough to send [عزيزي الزائر يتوجب عليك التسجيل لمشاهدة الرابط للتسجيل اضغط هنا] the case to a jury.
With that, Moore and co counsel Gregory Sautter began presenting their defense, and four short testimonies later, they rested their case, too.
The lawsuit stems from the July 22, 2024, shooting of Fong Lee, 19.
Andersen shot Fong Lee three times as he ran, then five more times after he had fallen.
Police have maintained from the beginning that the shooting was justified. Police Chief Tim Dolan reinstated Andersen to duty even before the officer had given a statement about the shooting to department investigators.
Padden and Hechter have [عزيزي الزائر يتوجب عليك التسجيل لمشاهدة الرابط للتسجيل اضغط هنا] argued that the shooting was unjustified. They contend a surveillance video that caught the final seconds of the chase shows Fong Lee was unarmed.
They also have argued that the Russian made semiautomatic pistol found 3 feet beyond Fong Lee’s outstretched left hand was planted by police. There were no fingerprints on the gun or the seven bullets it held.
But the first and main defense witness, expert witness Michael Brave, who was hired by the city, testified it didn’t matter whether Fong Lee had a gun. What mattered, he said, was whether Andersen believed he did.
"If Officer Andersen reasonably believed he had a gun, the shooting was justified," said Brave, president of LAAW International Inc. (Liability Assessment and Awareness), a firm that offers police training, expert services, "legal assistance and case strategies" and other services, according to the company’s Web site.
Last week, the plaintiffs offered their own expert witness, former Tucson, Ariz., police officer Philip Corrigan, to testify that Andersen’s action was unjustified. But Brave, a cop turned lawyer turned expert witness, said Corrigan was wrong when he said Fong Lee would’ve had to have been pointing the gun at Andersen before the officer could fire.
"Officers don’t have to be shot before they return fire. That’s not part [عزيزي الزائر يتوجب عليك التسجيل لمشاهدة الرابط للتسجيل اضغط هنا] of the job," Brave said. "They’re entitled to use deadly force to stop that threat."
Brave said the surest way to stop a threat was to disable a person’s central nervous system with a shot to either the eye or the spinal column. But given that most police officers aren’t in a position to take those kinds of shots, he said, "most officers are taught to shoot (at) center mass."
He said the next fastest way to stop a person is to cause rapid blood pressure loss, so officers are generally taught to shoot at the upper abdomen where most of the organs are concentrated.
Under questioning by Moore, he [عزيزي الزائر يتوجب عليك التسجيل لمشاهدة الرابط للتسجيل اضغط هنا] said nothing in the fact that Andersen shot Fong Lee eight times gave him pause.
"Officers [عزيزي الزائر يتوجب عليك التسجيل لمشاهدة الرابط للتسجيل اضغط هنا] are trained to continue discharging their weapon" until the threat is stopped, said Brave, who also works part time as a police officer in Boyd, Wis., a city of about 600 people about 100 miles east of St. Paul.
The damage done by Andersen’s eight bullets was the subject of the plaintiff’s last witness, Dr. Jonathan Thompson, a former assistant Hennepin County medical examiner who now works in Iowa. Testifying by deposition, Thompson spoke about the nine wounds caused by the eight bullets, and as his testimony was read into the record, 25 photos of the wounds and Fong Lee’s bloody clothing were entered into evidence.
[عزيزي الزائر يتوجب عليك التسجيل لمشاهدة الرابط للتسجيل اضغط هنا] [عزيزي الزائر يتوجب عليك التسجيل لمشاهدة الرابط للتسجيل اضغط هنا] [عزيزي الزائر يتوجب عليك التسجيل لمشاهدة الرابط للتسجيل اضغط هنا]