A 71-year-old man with bone cancer was thrown to the ground by an Oklahoma City police officer and suffered a brain bleed and a broken neck. The older man refused to sign a ticket for making an illegal U-turn last month.
Lich Vu, who is Vietnamese and seems to have trouble speaking English, is still in the hospital with injuries and is connected to a food tube.
His family is worried that he may die from the fight with the police officer, who looks much younger and stronger than the victim.
News 9 reports that Vu and his wife were going to feed homeless people at a nearby shelter after leaving church when they were in a small accident with another car.
A statement from police shared on Facebook along with the body camera video says that Oklahoma City police officer Joseph Gibson has been put on paid administrative leave.
The video shows Gibson grabbing Vu by the wrist and spinning him to the ground after the older man lightly tapped the officer on the chest with his hand, then put his index finger to his mouth and told Gibson to “shut up” while they were fighting about the ticket, which made the officer very angry.
The police officer tells Vu, “Get on the ground,” as he ties his hands around his waist and faces the ground.
A security video from a nearby company was also made public, providing a more complete picture of what happened.
It proved that the elderly man was not physically abusing or threatening the officer, but rather he was just tapping the officer on the chest while wearing a bulletproof vest.
But the police officer hit him in the chest with a light tap, making it look like Vu fell on his own after the officer grabbed his arm.
“Vu hit me on the chest with the back of his right hand, right where my badge and body camera were.” Gibson wrote in his police report, “then right away put his index finger to his mouth and told me to shut up and “shh,”” KOCO-TV got the report.
He also said in his report, “I pulled on Lich’s arm, and he fell to the ground.” It was clear to me that Lich was going to fall when I told them to get on the ground.
His face was straight down to the ground as he fell. Lich’s face hit the ground. I saw that he had a cut and a knot on his scalp. I put Lich in handcuffs and watched as he didn’t react and looked like he was asleep.
I thought Lich looked like he was breathing. “Over the radio, I called for fire, EMS, and a supervisor,” News 9 says. An open payroll report says Gibson, who was hired in 2018, makes more than $83,000 a year.
The Backlash
The accident happened on October 27 when Vu, who was driving with his wife, tried to make a U-turn at an intersection and hit another car.
The crash video has not been made public, but the officer’s body camera shows him or her citing the other car for having an expired license tag. The film shows that Lu didn’t understand why he was getting a ticket and told the officer, “She hit me.”
The police officer tells him that signing the ticket does not mean he admits guilt, but that he knows he has been given one. An Oklahoma lawyer says that because of Oklahoma law, police can arrest people who refuse to sign tickets.
Teresa Vu, Vu’s daughter, wrote the following on Facebook to say how upset she was about the violent arrest.
I’m angry and let down by the Oklahoma City Police Department. This is not the right way to treat a 5’3″ 115-pound person who has bone cancer after a car crash. Even more so if English is not their first language. This is something I will never forget, even if my dad doesn’t get better and dies.
I love you Dad, even though we don’t always agree. Thank you for telling me about this.
In a statement, Oklahoma City police said that the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office would look into what happened, but it would be some time before a decision was made.
The Oklahoma City Police Department is committed to being open and responsible. The community should know that this case is being carefully looked into, and the review process will take some time to finish. Please be patient with us as we work to finish this investigation.
Over 10,000 Vietnamese people live in Oklahoma City. Most of them moved there as refugees after the Vietnam War in 1975 and mostly live in the “Little Saigon” neighborhood.
“For a police officer to think that a 71-year-old man could actually hurt him on purpose,” Thuan Nguyen, President-elect of the Vietnamese American Community of Oklahoma, told KFOR. “There is an unspoken bias in our Asian community.”
Nguyen said the couple had just left church and were going to feed poor people at a nearby shelter, but they wanted to change clothes first before going. But they never got to the safety spot.
The group told News 9 that they would hold the police force and its officers responsible for giving their cadets and officers the right training.
We speak for them.” We’re going to help them get justice for what happened, and we’re not going to hold back. The following message was posted by Vu’s daughter on her Facebook page.
He is awake now and can talk and recognize people. It makes sense that he gets angry sometimes when he can’t remember why he’s there or how he got there.
Because he broke his neck, he can’t take anything properly. They have an NG tube in his throat so that he can be fed and hydrated all the time.