Jury deadlocked over first-degree manslaughter charge
By Associated Press
A mistrial was declared Dec. 13 in the first-degree manslaughter trial of a Vietnamese American man from Seattle who fatally stabbed another man during a racially charged Fourth of July confrontation in Ocean Shores last summer.
Grays Harbor County Superior Court jurors deadlocked on whether Minh Duc Hong, 26, should be convicted in the killing of Christopher Kinison, 20, outside a gas station and convenience store. Jurors deliberated 10 1/2 hours over two days.
Once jurors indicated they were deadlocked, Judge David Foscue asked them to go back and consider whether they could reach a verdict in a reasonable amount of time. They quickly returned and said they could not.
“We worked very hard to come to a joint verdict,” said Eugene Schermer, the foreman. Jurors said they had agreed not to discuss the case.
Hong said he was relieved. The victim’s mother, Molly Kinison, left the courthouse in tears. She had no comment.
There was no immediate word from prosecutors on whether they will seek to retry Hong.
Hong, who had been with his twin brother and a friend, said Kinison and others accosted them, shouting racist taunts as they tried to leave a Texaco gas station parking lot.
Kinison stood in front of the young Asian American men’s car, blocking it and waving a Confederate flag, defense lawyer Monte Hester told jurors earlier that week. Hong’s brother got out to run away and wound up in a fight with Kinison. Hester said Hong had to step in to defend his brother and eventually defend himself.
When Duc Hong took the stand in his own defense last week, he told jurors that he had feared for his life when he took out a knife and started slashing at Kinison during the fight.
Hong spoke for about two hours as the defense closed its case in Grays Harbor County Superior Court.
Prosecutors had contended that although Hong was defending himself, he acted “recklessly” when he stabbed Kinison 23 times.
“I was trying to get away from the attack,” Hong told jurors last week. “I was scared for my life. He made me believe my life was in danger.”
The fatal encounter began when the three Asian American men visited a Texaco minimart to buy food about 2 a.m. on July 4. Hong said he saw a crowd of five or six white men who looked like skinheads standing between his parked vehicle and the door.
Hong said a “man with a Confederate flag,” identified as Kinison, yelled racial slurs at him and the group mocked the trio’s language with words like “ching chong.” He said Kinison looked through the store window at the trio inside and made a gesture of slashing his neck.
On the way out, Hong said, the same man taunted him, spat on him, and said loudly to his face, “You don’t effing belong here. Go back to your country.”
As the trio tried to drive away, the man got in front of the car, and others were nearby, Hong said. He said he was scared and tried to call 911 but the cell phone didn’t work.
“My brother said, ‘Just make a run for it,’” Hong said. His brother and the friend got out of the car but Kinison started punching the brother and another man started fighting with the friend, Hong said.
“I came out of the car and I wanted to push him away. Before I got to the person with the flag, I got hit in the face,” Hong said, and his glasses were knocked off.
Kinison then grabbed Hong by the neck and started hitting him, Hong said. He said he reached for a knife in his pocket and started slashing in the man’s direction.
“I know that I used the knife — I didn’t know that I stabbed anybody,” Hong told jurors.
He said he did not tell police about the knife because he was afraid he would get in trouble for shoplifting it from the minimart.
But a witness who had attended high school with Kinison testified that she had heard Hong say “he’s going down” and gesture toward Kinison when Hong was inside the store. On the stand, Hong had denied any such conversation.
Ocean Shores resident Amanda Algeo had been one of 11 witnesses called by the prosecution. She said Hong talked to her when she was in line at the gas station minimart behind Hong, his brother and a friend of theirs.
“He asked me if Chris had a problem with Asians and I said ‘not to my knowledge’ and after that he said, ‘Well he’s going down,’” Algeo said.
Prosecutors asked her about Hong’s demeanor and she said “a little anxious, irritated and mad.”
She said she asked the store clerk to call 911 but he didn’t do it.
Algeo also said she bumped into Kinison on her way out of the store and her old acquaintance told her he wanted to start a fight.
“I asked him why and he said it was called racism,” she said. “I said it was called stupidity … I said somebody was going to get hurt and that’s when I left.”
Another witness, Alyson Green of Olympia, said she was standing outside the minimart when Kinison asked her if she wanted to see a fight.
Of 15 prosecution witnesses called in the trial’s first two days, only one testified to seeing Kinison and others surround the car driven by Hong’s twin brother and keep it from exiting the gas station.
Matt Gonzales, a 21-year-old Olympia resident, was the last witness to testify. He said Kinison tried to pick a fight with him but he wasn’t interested. Gonzales said he watched from a parking lot across the street as Hong’s brother stopped the car carrying the three young Asian American men as they were trying to leave the Texaco station. Gonzales said Kinison was standing at the front corner of the car on the driver’s side, less than a foot from the bumper.