By Kai Ma
After Joseph Han decided to open a longboarding business in Folsom, California, he’d bought a rusty-red Volkswagen bus. The vehicle, purchased last summer for a few hundred dollars, only operated in first and second gears. The paint was badly chipped.
But none of that mattered to the young entrepreneur. Until he could open a physical store, the bus would serve as a promotional vehicle. After naming the company Black Lotus Boards, Han converted his garage into a workspace, spending thousands on woodworking machines to create prototypes for new, more innovative and affordable boards. Once established, he planned to donate longboards to kids.
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As for the bus, he began sanding it down, adding black primer, redoing the interior and engine—even purchasing solar panels to add to the roof.
“Folsom is a really hot area,” said Tim Cho, Han’s cousin. “So it’s 105 degrees, but here’s Joe, sanding this car for hours, outside,” adding with a laugh, “It was pretty ridiculous.”
The vintage Volkswagen fit Han’s personality, added Cho, who lives in Mountain View, two hours from Folsom. Han had long hair, listened to Bob Marley. “He looked like an Asian surfer-slash-hippie. He was laid-back—that’s the best way to describe him. He didn’t take anything too seriously. No drama. He went against the grain.”
But less than a year after Han bought his bus, he was dead.
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On Easter morning of this year, Han, who lived with his parents and 19-year-old brother, was fatally shot by police in his home in Folsom, a suburb east of Sacramento. He was 23 years old.
According to news and police reports, and interviews with cousin Cho, Han was acting unusual the days leading up to April 12, and his family called the Folsom Police Department for help. But the family and police’s accounts of what unfolded inside the home after three officers arrived are very different.
Early last month, the Folsom Police Department released the names of the officers who shot Han: Paul Barber, 32, and Sgt. Ron Peterson, 57, a 27-year veteran of the force. In a public statement, Sgt. Rick Hillman, who heads the department’s professional standards division, said that the police had arrived at the scene at 10:30 a.m. after a family friend, translating for Han’s parents, requested help.
According to Hillman, the caller told police that Han had been hallucinating, hadn’t eaten in several days and was locked in his bedroom with a knife. Hillman’s public account also specified that Peterson, Barber and a third officer entered the house and went upstairs to Han’s “cluttered” nine-foot-by-nine-foot bedroom. Han was standing, holding what police described as a nine-inch folding knife with a 4.5-inch blade. He told an officer to get out of his room or he’d “cut his throat,” Hillman said.
The officer drew a Taser stun gun and told Han to stop. When Han didn’t, the officer fired the Taser, but to no effect. Then, Barber entered the room and fired his Taser, which authorities said was also ineffective. When Han advanced on Barber, the officer fired his handgun, hitting Han in the upper body. Peterson then fired his Taser, but when Han advanced toward him with the knife in his hand, police said, Peterson fired his handgun, striking Han also in the upper body.
Han was transported to the University of California Davis Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
But Cho’s parents, Young So and Nam Hee Han, and brother, David, dispute police accounts that Han came at them with a knife, according to Tim Cho and Paul Cho (no relation), president of the Korean American Community Association of Greater Sacramento. Both have spoken extensively to the family about what they’d witnessed.
Paul Cho said he and other Korean American leaders in the area approached the Folsom Police Department to demand an explanation, and was told that Han was shot after failing to drop his weapon. “Their argument is weak,” Cho said. “I find it almost impossible to believe. The police acted excessively…that is for sure.”
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According to Tim Cho, Han’s behavior in the days leading up to his death was unusual—but nothing that the average person doesn’t experience every once in a while. Though he was eating very little, the reports that he’d stopped consuming entirely and was hallucinating are inaccurate, Cho said.
“He was definitely going through a self-reflection period,” said Cho, of his younger cousin. “But he wasn’t shutting himself out. He met friends for coffee; he talked to his parents in his room. It’s not like he locked himself in and shunned himself from the rest of the world.
“He was reading the Bible a lot those last couple days, trying to understand his faith. He was trying to keep his mind clear.” Cho said that Han’s girlfriend had noticed no signs of depression or abnormal behavior. “Joe was never considered a depressed person,” added Cho. “This behavior—it was just that one week, the three to five days before he died.”
Still, Han’s demeanor was peculiar enough to prompt his mother to seek advice from Cho and others. She wasn’t worried that Han would hurt himself, said Cho, but felt that he was compromising his health by not eating enough. So, acting on the advice of a friend, who said the police could perhaps escort Han to a counseling center or send an officer trained in handling mental disturbances, Han’s mother made the call.
Cho, who arrived at the scene two hours after the shooting, has spoken to the police and questions the validity of their statements. Cho described his cousin’s blade as “any standard pocketknife” and feels the police have been exaggerating its length and size. “Each time I speak to them, the knife gets a half-inch longer,” he said.
Han’s mother and brother were present during the incident. (His father was downstairs until the first shot was fired.) Cho spoke to Han’s brother that Sunday, and to Han’s mother the next day, about what they’d witnessed. “Not a single detail is consistent with what the police reported,” he said.
The family told Cho that Han did not attack the police, but did have a knife and closed his door after asking the police to leave his room. The officers then kicked down the door with their Taser guns drawn, they say. Han was stunned several times, which had no effect on him, and then an officer fired a shot from his handgun. “It went through his chest and into the back wall,” said Cho.
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At this point, Han’s mother fainted. An officer grabbed David, Han’s brother, and pushed him into the bathroom so hard that the door broke, the family told Cho. Han’s father attended to his wife. “My aunt and cousin clearly remember that the officer had control of the hand with the knife in it,” said Cho. “Joe did not lunge or make any threatening moves towards the police officers. My best guess is that [the officers’] adrenaline was running and they immediately kicked down the door, instead of taking a moment to evaluate their options.
“There was a struggle and [the police] shot him again. And his life ended there.”
All three officers, who were immediately put on administrative leave, had returned to work as of last month.
The incident occurred a month before another police-involved shooting of a Korean American in California: Susie Young Kim of Irvine led police on a high-speed chase before a Santa Ana officer fatally shot her while Kim’s 13-month-old daughter was in the backseat of the car. And it was two years ago when Michael Cho, a Korean American artist, was shot to death by police in La Habra, California, after authorities said he threatened them with a tire iron.
At the time of this writing, a lawsuit has not been officially filed, but Tim Cho said his cousin’s family plans to sue. John Burris, the Han family’s attorney, is still gathering information on the case, but has run into barriers at the coroner’s office and police department, who have not been turning over officials reports to the family, according to Cho.
In response, Hillman from the Folsom Police Department told KoreAm that the case is still active. “We’ve corresponded with the attorney, and we explained that we do not release reports that are under investigation,” he said. As for why the police accounts are so different from the family’s, Hillman said, “The family has not talked to us and has not provided a statement. We feel for [the family]. We’ve reached out to the family. We don’t know why their account is different because we don’t know what their side of the story is.”
***
Han was born in San Jose, and spent his childhood there. Later, the family moved to Folsom. Han’s mother and Cho’s mother were sisters, and their families saw each other several times a week. (Han’s parents and brother declined KoreAm’s interview requests. Similarly, Han’s girlfriend of several years, who lives in the Bay Area, would decline an interview, Cho said.)
Cho is 28 and his brother is 27. While growing up, Han looked up to his older cousins. “I definitely felt like I had a brotherly role in his life,” said Cho. “There were a lot of things that my brother and I did that Joe would pick up: hockey, guitar. We’d go to the park, the pool, played roller hockey on the street. Those were fond memories.”
The cousins also bonded during family trips. “On the car rides up, Joe would joke about taboo topics and always be the center of laughter,” recalled Cho. ”That helped to bring our families closer together. He would talk about anything: politics, relationships, skateboarding, adventures.”
Indeed, this adventurous spirit shaped the last few years of Han’s life. He began skateboarding in high school, but eventually shifted into longboarding. This variety of skateboarding “is more about hills and bombing down them and taking turns really fast, so it’s more about speed and getting that adrenaline rush,” descibed Cho, who used to longboard with his cousin. “He was gutsy and passionate. He’d be flying down on a thing piece of wood on four little tires, going 40 miles and hour, and then at the borrom of the hill, he’d make a sharp left turn.
“It gave him a sense of freedom.”
After Han graduated from the University of California, Irvine in 2007 with a degree in criminology, he returned to Folsom. He helped his parents out at their teriyaki fast food business in Roseville. Soon, he eventually began envisioning- then creating- his own enterprise.
A demonstration for Han is being planned in front of the district attorney’s office in Sacramento, and Han’s close friends and a relative still meet every week to organize protests. On May 13, more than 150 people gathered at a demonstration, peacefully demanding justice for Han. As a nod to Han’s life and aspirations, many wore “Black Lotus Boards” T-shirts.
“He had big dreams,” said Cho. “He just never got a chance.”
