Here is the stroy in the newspaper.
Gang member was son, too
As police reveal some details of death, a family mourns a loved one they call gentle.
BY ARON KAHN
Pioneer Press
Fong Lee had a gun, a Russian-made semiautomatic pistol with nine rounds in it, but he never fired a shot Saturday night when a Minneapolis police officer shot and killed the 19-year-old on a school field in North Minneapolis.
Before the shooting, there was a confrontation between Fong Lee and the officer, and before the confrontation a hand-to-hand exchange between Fong Lee and another man — which might have been the passage of drugs.
Those were the prominent details delivered Monday by authorities Monday, along with the disclosure that Fong Lee was a documented gang member, had been arrested for rioting at a St. Paul soccer match and once paid a $200 fine on a misdemeanor trespassing charge.
Their totality was enough for interim Police Chief Tim Dolan to put officer Jason Andersen back on the street today after a paid administrative leave that followed his shooting of Fong Lee.
State trooper Craig Benz, who was paired with Andersen on Saturday night, also was placed on paid administrative leave after the 7 p.m. shooting, though Dolan said Monday that Benz did not fire a shot.
But much remained to be learned as Monday passed without a clear resolution of the deadly incident. Were there truly drugs involved? Where is the alleged collaborator as well as two others said to be at the scene? How many shots did Andersen fire? What will the autopsy show?
And then there's a videotape. It shot intermittent photos that night from the school building, Cityview Elementary. Dolan said the tape shows Fong Lee with an object in his hand, with Andersen close behind and Benz a distance back. The tape is being processed for "enhancement,'' Dolan said, and eventually might be seen by the public.
The most curious to know the answers are Fong Lee's kin, a deeply mourning Hmong family living on a street of small, neatly kept homes in the 4800 block of Emerson Avenue North.
His mother, Youa Vang Lee, sat in front of her tan stucco house Monday trying to speak in English, trying to make sense through snuffles and tears. She hoped somehow that there was a mistake, that it wasn't true her son was dead.
"She's still hoping that he comes home,'' 25-year-old Boon Lee, another son, said in translation. "Hoping and praying that he's not dead. They have not let us go see Fong, not let us identify him for ourselves.''
Youa Vang Lee's personal vigil for the fourth of her six children was a mixture of sadness and bewilderment, as she pledged that he never had a gun.
"I raise my hand to God,'' she finally got out. "He had nothing with him."
In an interview Monday, Youa Vang Lee and her five surviving children said Fong Lee couldn't have appeared so dangerous to Andersen and Benz because he had never seemed like a threat to anyone.
The mother and siblings of Fong Lee said he was a loving man who made dinner for his parents when they came home from work, took gentle care of his sister's two children while she was at work and tenderly raised pigeons in three handmade coops at the back of the house.
"He would take my son to school every morning and then pick him up in the afternoon,'' said his sister Shoua Lee, 21.
But there are many contrasts in the life of Fong Lee. Ron Ryan, commander of the Metro Gang Strike Force, said he was a member of OMB, a gang also known as the Oroville Mono Boys and the Oriental Mono Boys. Ryan said search warrants were issued in Fong Lee's name at residences in St. Paul and St. Cloud, but Ryan didn't have information Monday on the suspected crimes.
At a police news conference, Capt. Rich Stanek said Fong Lee once was arrested for burglary, a felony. But county crime records show he was prosecuted by the city attorney for trespassing, a misdemeanor.
His arrest was not as it seems, Shoua Lee contended. Her brother tried to get into an abandoned house to retrieve some pigeons there and give them a home, she said.
Fong Lee's family, who came to Minnesota from Laos in 1988, spoke of their fallen son in reverent tones during an hour-long interview. But from another corner of the city, in a records room at the police department, there also were kinds words for Andersen, a member of the force for less than a year.
Just one notation sits in Andersen's file; a congratulatory e-mail from Sgt. John Billington, who had passed along praise from Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Fred Karasov.
"He mentioned he rode with you recently, and was totally impressed with your knowledge, tactics, and primarily the way you handle contacts with citizens on the street,'' Billington wrote.
"Fred talked about how you treated all with respect, and let the person you were talking with dictate the way the contact would go. Nice job, and keep it up!"
Aron Kahn can be reached at akahn@pioneerpress.com or 612-338-6516.
HOW SAD!!!! 
