Inquest Jurors Return Conclusions in 2018 Death of Wangsheng Leng, Do Not Appear to Absolve Officers

by Carolyn Bick

(This article was originally published in Northwest Asian Weekly and has been reprinted under an agreement.)

A panel of six jurors reached conclusions in a series of yes-or-no-style questions posed in the inquest into the 2018 death of Wangsheng Leng. The conclusions — delivered on Feb. 7, after two and a half days of deliberations following three days of testimony — were largely unanimous and did not appear to completely absolve the responding Issaquah Police Department (IPD) officers of wrongdoing in the minds of the jury.

Leng, 66, died of pneumonia in September 2018, about a month after an encounter in his home with IPD officers Michael Lucht and Kylen Whittom. It was this encounter — specifically, the way the officers treated Leng while handcuffing him — that Leng's wife, Liping Yang, believes ultimately resulted in Leng's death. A jury ultimately sided with the officers in the civil case against them and the City of Issaquah, and a federal court denied the family's motion for a new trial.

The inquest administrator did not read the jurors' reasoning into the record, but did deliver their answers for all 65 questions posed to the panel. Readers can find the complete list of questions here, as well as each juror's explanation for some of their answers.

A majority of questions received unanimous "yeses" or "nos," but a few found the jurors split in significant ways.

One question asked whether Leng moved toward the officers. Three jurors said "yes," and three said "unknown."

Another question asked jurors when the officers knew Leng suffered from Alzheimer's disease. The jurors were unable to come to a consensus about whether that happened during the officers handcuffing Leng or after. Still another question asked whether the scrapes observed on Leng's body were a result of his encounter with the officers, on which the jury was split: Three said "yes," and three said "unknown."

While the jury answered four to two — four said "yes," and two were uncertain — that the force Lucht and Whittom used against Leng caused or contributed to his death, five jurors agreed that the degenerative spinal cord disease from which Leng suffered also played a part. Only one juror said they were uncertain. All six jurors said Leng's Alzheimer's disease contributed to his death.

The jury was also split three to three on whether Lucht and Whittom complied with IPD's Use of Force policy that was in place at the time, and whether either officer complied with their training on it. Similarly, the jury was split four to two between "yes" and "uncertain" regarding whether the officers complied with IPD policy on crisis intervention, and three to three between "yes" and "uncertain" regarding whether the officers complied with IPD policy on biased-based policing and their training in that area.

Finally, the jurors were split two to four — again, "yes" and "uncertain," respectively — regarding whether Lucht and Whittom complied with IPD's Limited English Proficiency Services policy and their training in this policy.Readers who are interested in watching the full inquest proceedings, including testimonies, can find those recordings here.

Featured Image: Screenshot taken from video played at the Feb. 7 inquest into the 2018 death of Wangsheng Leng.