Family grapples with loss in shooting
By Stephen Magagnini - smagagnini@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PDT Friday, August 8, 2008
Story appeared in OUR REGION section, Page B1

Cheng Vang talks to reporters in front of his brother Ka Thao Vang's
home in south Sacramento on Thursday. Ka Thao Vang, a Hmong refugee
from Laos, shot his 16-year-old son Phong Vang on Wednesday,
critically injuring him, and then killed himself. The pair had clashed
over issues of respect, family members said.
RANDALL BENTON / rbenton@sacbee.com

Friends and family from throughout Northern California on Thursday
poured into the south Sacramento home where Ka Thao Vang hosted
parties, told jokes and raised nine children.

Shaded by two big trees, the home, once filled with joy, was drenched
in tears as everyone wondered what caused Vang, 54, to snap.

Vang, a Hmong refugee from Laos known for his generosity and
fastidiousness, took his own life Wednesday afternoon after shooting
his 16-year-old son Phong Vang seven times in the legs and back.

The teenager was listed in critical condition at UC Davis Medical
Center.

The pair had clashed many times over issues of respect and how a son
should behave, family members said.

According to one of his daughters, Ka Thao Vang, a farmer in Laos who
studied to become a pastor, used to say, "This country is no better
than my old country, where children listen to their parents and go
farming all day."

"My dad was very strict," said Lisa Vang, 20. "He didn't want us to go
out with friends."

His relationship with Phong Vang was stormy, she said.

Since Phong Vang was in eighth grade, "he'd sleep at his friends'
house for comfort when he and my dad argued," she said. "As soon as my
dad starts yelling, he just doesn't stop. He doesn't understand
(Phong's) a teenager."

Phong Vang's 15-year-old sister Mary said her brother would talk back
to his dad.

"He loves to hang around with his friends more than his family," she
said.

In Hmong culture, "The son is the dad's future – he takes over; but
he's just a kid – they got to go out and play," Lisa Vang said.

Phong Vang recently became the first in his family to pass a high
school exit exam, she said, but he fell in with some friends who got
into trouble with the law.

Wednesday, her father was with friends near the garage, "playing cards
for fun – if you lose, you drink," said Lisa Vang, wiping her tears as
she sat on the plush beige sofa on the family's porch.

"My brother was sitting on this sofa with his two friends, and the
last thing my mom heard was my dad told Phong's two friends very
loudly to go home," Lisa Vang said. "They'd argued many times over his
friends, but not that day."

Something set Vang off after he screamed at his son's friends to go
home. Vang got the .45-caliber handgun he used to hunt squirrels and
kept for protection, Lisa Vang said.

Vang had threatened to break his son's legs before, she said, but she
never believed he would act violently toward his son.

After shooting his son, he went into the house and ended his life with
a bullet to the chest.

She remembered her dad as a "very generous man" who'd take the whole
family out for Vietnamese food every Saturday. "He always ordered beef
noodle soup, and he'd always make sure if we wanted a large bowl, we'd
get it."

Ka Thao Vang was a man of routine who would shower, brush his teeth,
blow away the leaves that had fallen overnight and then ferry his
children to school.

Sometimes he'd make three trips in a day while his wife went to work
in a factory assembling metal pipes.

He came to the United States about 30 years ago, sponsored by a church
in Oklahoma, said his younger brother Cheng Vang of Fresno.

"He worked all the time but lost his job as (a) machine operator in
Carson City before coming to Sacramento," his brother said.

Vang would come to Sacramento Lao Family Community Center "for help
with his utility bill, his children's papers from school and his
paperwork with county welfare," said director Xia Kao-Vang.

Ka Thao Vang, who dressed in ties and pressed pants, "was from every
indication a fine, upstanding man of honor," said Sacramento County
Sheriff John McGinness, whose agency responded to the shootings.

"Who knows what may have been building there based on past issues? Is
it a culmination of a lot of different adverse experiences and
frustration? Was it just something the kid said? We'll probably never
know."