Lying in the grass in front of his estranged wife’s St. Paul home last winter, Timothy Ka Vang fired several shots at his in-laws after they opened the front door. Now he’ll spend his foreseeable future in prison.
Timothy Ka Vang, 25, was sentenced Monday in Ramsey County District Court to 27 years in prison after pleading guilty in June to two counts of second-degree attempted murder.
His public defender could not immediately be reached for comment Monday.
Vang was at Checkerboard Pizza in St. Paul in the early-morning hours of Jan. 28 when he got into a fight with his wife’s brother, according to court documents. He and his wife had been separated for about a year at the time.
Following the altercation, Vang threatened to kill his brother-in-law’s friends and family and then left the pizza place in his Toyota 4Runner.
Some time later, his brother-in-law was at his family’s home on the 1300 block of Bradley Street when his mother woke to the sound of knocking. Fearing that it was Vang, the man ran to the door and pushed his mother aside. When he opened it, he saw Vang lying in the grass.
Vang then began firing shots at the house, striking the man and his mother, court records say. Vang’s brother-in-law sustained gunshot wounds to his torso. His mother-in-law was hit in her torso, arm and leg. Both were taken to the hospital for treatment and survived.
Vang initially denied any involvement in the shooting, but the incident was caught on a neighbor’s surveillance system.
Vang was convicted in 2012 of two counts of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon after shooting at a car occupied by his then-girlfriend, their child and three other people.
He admitted at his sentencing hearing for that crime that he had a problem with anger and was trying to manage it.
Vang was also convicted of felony-level domestic assault in 2015.