Phoua Thao Hang, 70, was murdered in a hit-and-run accident in St. Paul, and her family is urging anybody with knowledge to come forward. They say she was a nice person who believed in the goodwill of others.
In a statement released on Wednesday, Hang’s family claimed that she “was senselessly slain when a stolen vehicle slammed into her automobile.” As of Wednesday afternoon, the driver and passengers had not been located after they fled.
Representative Jay Xiong, DFL-St. Paul, is Hang’s grandson. Pakou Hang and Janssen Hang, her son and daughter, established the Hmong American Farmers Association.
Mayor of St. Paul Melvin Carter remarked, “To say Mrs. Hang was a wonderful person would be an understatement.” She has a valuable soul. That is evident in her family. Her children and grandkids demonstrate that. Anyone who visited the St. Paul Farmers’ Market could see it in the enthusiasm with which she shared the products there.
On Sunday night, Phoua Hang was returning from a garden. The 50-year-old woman’s husband was operating the vehicle when the collision in the Payne-Phalen area occurred. Hang’s family and the police later clarified that she was the passenger, contradicting the first police account that she was the driver.
According to the family, Hang’s husband passed out after learning that she had died at the scene and was taken to the hospital. He is now recuperating at home after being released.
The Hang family said that Phoua Thao Hang was the single most significant person in their life. “Our world is no longer illuminated.”
Gail Chang Bohr, a senior state judge who was reading the statement in her own role, did so. For more than 30 years, she had known Phoua and regarded her like a sibling.
In order to “seek justice for the loss of my grandma,” the family members convened on Wednesday to deliver the statement, according to Xiong. Hang’s spouse was unable to attend the news conference because he was filled with sadness.
Please bring yourself up to the authorities if you were a direct participant, Bohr pleaded. “Share this information with the police if you know anyone who was engaged. The proper thing to do can always be done at any time.
Anyone with information is urged to contact the police at 651-266-5656.
According to Interim Police Chief Jeremy Ellison on Wednesday, officers have rebuilt the collision scene, spoken with witnesses, examined footage, and collected samples for DNA evidence.
The Kia Sportage that struck Hang’s car was reported stolen from Minneapolis, close to Lake Nokomis, on Sunday at 5:50 p.m. The Kia was next spotted in St. Paul at 3rd Street and Maria Avenue at 6:11 p.m. and West Seventh Street and Otto Avenue at 6:04 p.m., according to police.
At 7:39 p.m. at Upper Afton Road and White Bear Avenue and at 8:25 p.m. at Gerald and Mesabi Avenues in North St. Paul, two reports of reckless driving with descriptions of the car matching the Kia were received by the Ramsey County Emergency Communications Center. Police reported Wednesday that neither time were officers able to locate the car.
The deadly collision took place at 10:04 p.m. According to Ellison, the Kia came from an alley between Cook and Magnolia avenues when Hang’s husband was traveling north on Forest Street in the car.
The head of the traffic and pedestrian safety section, Cmdr. Shari Falkowski, has urged any locals or businesses with security footage that could reveal the culprits to come forward.
Carter said he is certain that detectives would pursue every avenue to identify suspects and bring them to justice, but he noted that the police department “cannot do that work on their own.”
“There is someone who has information that can be of use… “It’s important for us to comprehend what occurred and hold them accountable… for the suffering they have caused our community family,” Carter said.
Phoua Hang lived in St. Paul for about 35 years.
The Hmong community and many Hmong families were targeted in Laos after the Vietnam War ended, according to Pakou Hang, Hang’s daughter, who spoke with her mother in 2007 for MPR News. “My parents escaped in the middle of the night since my father had served as a captain in the Royal Lao Army.”
According to a University of Minnesota Alumni Association article about Pakou Hang, who received her master’s degree from the university and was the first Hmong student to attend Yale University, where she received her bachelor’s degree, her parents arrived in the United States from a refugee camp in Thailand when Pakou was only 15 days old. Her parents moved to Minnesota from Wisconsin, where they were farmers.
