GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – A domestic abuser is facing over a half-dozen charges following a night of rage, violence, abduction and a shooting.
25-year-old Vai Yang is charged with second-degree recklessly endangering safety, false imprisonment, robbery with use of force and take and drive vehicle without consent among others.
According to the criminal complaint, Green Bay police were called to a home on Danz Avenue around 10:40 p.m. on February 26 for a disturbance complaint.
A woman told officers that her boyfriend’s son, identified as Vai Yang, arrived at house, kicked her in the shoulder near the back door, grabbed the keys to her car and left. She said that she’s afraid of Yang, who’s been living at the home since last year, because she believes he may kill her.
About 20 minutes later, police responded to a weapons call at a gas station in the 900 block of W. Mason Street. Officers on the way learned that one person was in the street with a gunshot wound to the leg next to a truck and another vehicle was driving off towards the Mason Street Bridge.
Cops arrived to find a man sitting next to his truck. He told them that he was involved in a crash with another car, and then, “The guy started punching him in the face when a struggle over his firearm occurred.” The gun did go off during the struggle, and while he was hit, he also believed the other guy was hit.
That victim say he was driving just past Webster Avenue when a car tried to wedge between his truck and another vehicle. That car hit his truck and spun the other vehicle out. He then followed the car across the Mason Street Bridge and that somewhere near the west end of the bridge the car suddenly slammed on its brakes. This caused his truck to rear-end the car.
Both vehicles pulled over near the gas station. The driver got out and walked towards him with his fists clenched. He told police he was, “Frightened and didn’t know what the man was capable of so he pulled his pistol from under his seat.” The man claimed to have a valid concealed carry permit.
Once his door opened, the man wasn’t scared by the gun pointing at him and began hitting him while trying to grab the gun.
Another officer spotted that car, with Vai Yang in the driver’s seat with an apparent gunshot wound to his abdomen. Yang was taken to the hospital, where he had surgery.
In the car with Yang was a man who reported that he was kidnapped from his Bellevue trailer home. According to this man, someone he didn’t know broke into his trailer. That someone was Yang, who kept yelling at him about someone named “Tyler” with a black Cadillac.
The man told police he thought maybe Yang was confusing him with someone else, because he kept telling Yang he didn’t know a “Tyler”. At the time, Yang was smoking a cigarette which he threw down on the bedroom floor.
Yang, per the complaint, told the man that he would be coming with him. The man objected, to which Yang responded, “You are coming with me the easy way or the hard.” He was scared that Yang would harm him if he didn’t go, so he did.
Yang ordered him to get into the front passenger seat of the stolen car. He sped off in an erratic manner, almost hitting a parked vehicle and a pole as they drove down Bellevue Street. The victim estimated they were going 80 miles an hour.
When approaching E. Mason Street, Yang passed the stopped traffic on the right and made a left turn against the red light. Yang continues to speed down Mason, weaving in and out of traffic. He slammed into a vehicle at the Quincy Street ramp, then continued driving recklessly over the Mason Street Bridge before they were hit from behind by another vehicle.
As the altercation near the gas station was happening, the kidnapping victim said he was afraid to run away because he, “Did not know where he would run to and was afraid Yang would shoot him.”
He heard the gunshots fire, then watched Yang get back in the car and drive around the block. Yang pulled over a short time later, gave the man his cell phone and told him to call an ambulance.
Investigators later went to the kidnapping victims’ trailer, and saw both the damage to the door of the trailer and a brown cigarette butt on the floor.
Vai Yang is due back in court for his arraignment on May 2. If convicted on all counts, Yang faces more than 45 years in prison.
