September 3, 2016
9:42 AM
WHOA!!!!
Armed felon critically wounds 2 officers in Fresno County Jail lobby
Two Fresno County correctional officers were in critical condition after they were shot by an ex-convict during a terrifying confrontation inside the downtown Fresno jail lobby Saturday morning.
About 15 people, including some children, were gathered in the lobby to take care of business involving jail inmates when shots suddenly rang out. A few minutes later, the floor was littered with broken glass and bullet casings.
Marcell Davis, 46, was outside waiting for his girlfriend, who was using the public restroom in the lobby when people started running outside. My main concern was, Is my old lady one of the people getting shot, because it sounded like they were shooting everybody, he said.
Sheriff Margaret Mims held a somber news conference Saturday afternoon. She identified the injured officers as Juanita Davila and Toamalama Scanlan and said both were in surgery at Community Regional Medical Center.
The suspect was identified as Thong Vang, 37, of Fresno, a convicted rapist with a long history of violent criminal behavior. Mims said he entered the lobby just after 8:30 a.m., saying he was there to visit someone.
Vang tried to go to the front of the line but was told to go to the back. He began to show signs of bizarre behavior by pacing back and forth next to a metal detector at the back of the lobby that leads to a secure area of the jail.
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At some point, officers used a stun gun on Vang, but still he did not surrender. Mims said a lieutenant in the correctional office returned fire, and then Vang gave himself up, saying he wanted to be arrested. Mims said Vang was injured, but it wasnt immediately clear if he had been shot. He was held at gunpoint while emergency workers attended to the two injured officers.
Mims said Vang was released from prison in 2014 after serving 16 years for raping three children ages 12 to 14.
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Long criminal history
Vangs rape case dates to 1998 from a Mongolian Boys Society sex-slave ring at a local Motel 6. The original case had 16 defendants.
Vang, then 20, pleaded guilty in 2000 to one count of forcible rape. He originally faced six counts of rape in concert with others, six counts of forcible rape and a count of false imprisonment, his lawyer said at the time.
He already had been sentenced to 19 years in prison in September 1998 after he pleaded guilty to similar charges in an earlier phase of the gang-rape investigation into the sex-slave ring that victimized Asian-American girls.
http://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/crime/article99798407.html
