Michael Cho - Death

Death

At 1 p.m. on New Year's Eve, police received a telephone report that an Asian man was vandalizing car windows on North Walnut Avenue; the officers who arrived on the scene were unable to find the man reported. The same person called in an hour later to report that the man in question was at Walnut Avenue and Whittier Boulevard and had a tire iron. Police arrived at the address of the alleged vandalism, the 7Gold Liquor Store at 545 Whittier Boulevard, after 2 p.m.; they contacted their dispatcher at 2:04 to state that they were outside of the liquor store with Cho. Their next communication with the dispatcher was 41 seconds later, during which they stated that they had shot Cho, and requested assistance from paramedics. The paramedics pronounced Cho dead at the scene.

The liquor store's closed-circuit television camera recorded 25 seconds of the incident. The relevant clip shows two officers with two guns drawn; Cho walked towards them and brought his right hand to his mouth. He appeared to be holding an object in his left hand. He then turned to his right and walked out of the camera's view; police continued to point their guns at him. The officers claimed that the object Cho was holding was the previously-reported tire iron, and that he threatened them with it and refused orders to put it down. Newspaper reports stated that police fired ten shots at Cho; La Habra police chief Dennis Kies was unable to confirm this number in an interview ten days after the shooting.