Lich Vu, an elderly man whom an Oklahoma City Police Department officer slammed to the ground during a traffic stop argument last year, has died, his attorney announced Saturday.
Vu, 72, died late Friday night with his family by his side, according to a statement issued by attorney Devon Jacob. Last year, Vu sustained serious injuries during an encounter with then-OKCPD officer Joseph Gibson that left him unconscious for five minutes.
On Oct. 27, 2024, Gibson threw Vu to the ground after the OKC resident tapped the officer’s chest with the back of his hand while arguing about a wreck-related traffic citation. Vu, who was 71 years old at the time of the incident, was hospitalized for weeks with face and neck fractures and a brain bleed.
In the statement, Jacob said the injuries Vu received complicated his medical outlook, which had already included ongoing treatment for bone cancer. Jacob did not designate Vu’s cause of death in the statement.
“After Gibson assaulted him, Mr. Vu’s health rapidly deteriorated — he spent weeks in a hospital and rehab, left rehab with a walker and only able to walk 10–15 feet at a time, struggled with balance, and within weeks of leaving rehab, became bedridden until his death,” Jacob wrote. “While Mr. Vu had been living with cancer, it was police brutality that caused catastrophic injuries and medical complications that hastened his death. When Gibson assaulted Mr. Vu, he robbed him of his independence, his health, and precious time with his family.”
Gibson resigned from the OKCPD in March. However, the federal lawsuit filed in April by Vu and his wife, Lan, is ongoing.
“On behalf of the Vu family, I reaffirm our commitment to pursuing justice and accountability so that no other Oklahoma family experiences such a devastating loss,” Jacob wrote. “I urge members of the media and the public to continue to balance the importance of reporting this story with the reality that the Vu family has suffered a deeply personal loss. As such, neither the family nor I will be making any further statements or answering questions at this time. Thank you for respecting the family’s privacy while they mourn.”
Lawsuit: OKCPD officer lied about use of force against Lich Vu
On July 15, The OKC City Council voted 7-2 to approve hiring an attorney on Gibson’s behalf. The city’s labor agreement with the Fraternal Order of Police, and state law, require the city to hire attorneys for its employees, even if they are not currently employed by the city.
Gibson was initially charged with aggravated assault and battery by Oklahoma County District Attorney Vick Behenna in December. But Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who is running for governor and who has been endorsed by Oklahoma’s Fraternal Order of Police chapter, took over the criminal case a few weeks later and dismissed the charge against Gibson, saying “this unfortunate incident never would have occurred if Mr. Vu had kept his hands to himself.”
“As attorney general, I will not permit Oklahoma police officers to face criminal prosecution for conduct adhering to their training,” Drummond said in a press release at the time. “While the outcome of this incident is unquestionably devastating for Mr. Vu and his family, I do not believe the officer exhibited criminal intent.”
However, Drummond’s comment about Gibson “adhering” to OKCPD training seemed to contradict the probable cause affidavit of OKCPD Internal Affairs officer Michael Rizzi, who wrote that he consulted with OKCPD “de-escalation control and defensive tactic instructors” while investigating Vu’s arrest.
“Due to Vu’s size, age, and the seriousness of the crime committed, it is believed the amount of force used by the defendant was not reasonable,” Rizzi wrote in the affidavit. “Lich Vu is described as approximately 5’4″ tall and weighs between 115 and 135 pounds. He is 71 years old in poor health. The defendant is approximately 5’6″ and weighs between 185 and 195 pounds and is in robust health.”
Following Drummond’s dismissal of charges, Behenna said she was “surprised and disappointed that (Drummond) took this case away from my office and the citizens of Oklahoma County.”
When Jacob, the Vu family attorney based in Pennsylvania, filed the lawsuit alleging excessive use of force and constitutional violations against Gibson and the City of OKC in April, he initially listed Drummond as a co-defendant. In the original complaint, Jacob noted that Drummond had released an attorney general’s opinion about police officer use of force prosecutions “just three days” after Gibson had slammed Vu to the pavement in October 2024.
Ironically, it was Behenna who had requested Drummond’s formal review of whether the statutory changes in HB 2537, passed in 2023 by the Oklahoma Legislature, “prohibit the prosecution of peace officers who use excessive force.” The bill removed reference to agency “policies and guidelines” as a consideration for criminal culpability of law enforcement officers.
In response to Behenna — who dismissed three pending criminal cases against seven police officers for fatal shootings months after taking office in 2023 — Drummond answered in the negative, stating that police can still be prosecuted criminally for use-of-force decisions.
“All peace officers in Oklahoma accused of utilizing excessive force are now judged using the same test: Was the force reasonably necessary under the circumstances at the time that the peace officer used force?” Drummond wrote.
Arguing that Gibson’s level of force was not reasonable owing to Lich Vu’s age and frailty, Jacob attempted to tie Drummond into the rights violations alleged in Vu’s lawsuit.
“Despite explaining in Attorney General Opinion 2024-15 that under revised Oklahoma law, police officers were to be judged by the same legal standard as all citizens, Drummond carved out an immunity exception for police officers only, i.e., if the police officer was following training that authorized the force used,” Jacob wrote. “Drummond’s decision to end the criminal prosecution against Gibson after he personally decided that Gibson’s conduct did not constitute an unlawful use of force, is clear evidence that he alone — not use of force experts, juries, criminal courts, or the legislature — is the sole and final decisionmaker regarding what constitutes excessive force in the state of Oklahoma. As the only person with such authority, with respect to use of force policy and training, Drummond is a de facto policymaker and supervisor for the city and OKCPD.”
Drummond’s solicitor general, Gary Gaskins, filed a motion to dismiss his boss from the Vu lawsuit, arguing that Jacob had made no “plausible claim” against Drummond and that his position as the state’s top prosecutor placed his actions outside the scope of the Oklahoma Governmental Tort Claims Act.
“The linear flow of time means that statements and actions of the attorney general after the Oct. 27, 2024, events cannot possibly have set them into motion. Likewise, the fact that the attorney general’s criminal investigation led him to believe in December 2024, that Gibson should not be held criminally liable does not plausibly support a conclusion that the attorney general himself wrote any of the policies Gibson applied in October 2024,” Gaskins wrote. “Further, the primary action by the attorney general identified by plaintiffs is the attorney general’s decision to dismiss criminal charges against Gibson. (…) The attorney general is entitled to absolute immunity related to his determination that insufficient evidence existed to convict Gibson of a criminal offense, and his decision to dismiss the charges against Gibson.”
According to court records, Jacob ultimately conferred with Drummond’s legal team and dismissed him from the lawsuit by filing an amended complaint in June. On Aug. 15, Jacob filed a second amended petition (embedded below) that continued to accuse Gibson of lying about his interaction with Vu when he discussed what happened with a supervising officer and an emergency medical technician.
“When asked by ambulance personnel what happened, Gibson did not state what he knew to be the truth, i.e., that he lifted Lich Vu from his feet and intentionally slammed him headfirst into the pavement,” Jacob wrote in the complaint. “Instead, Gibson stated, ‘I grabbed ahold of him. He fell. He hit his head whenever he fell. Pretty hard.”
In a section of the complaint alleging that Gibson “made several false statements to law enforcement,” Jacob also alleged that video footage from a nearby business showed Gibson grabbing his supervising officer’s vest twice “presumably indicating to Lt. (David) Gary that Lich Vu had done the same to him.”
Jacob concluded the section with a quote from Gibson’s incident report where he repeatedly claimed that Vu “fell” during the encounter.
“While I was holding onto Lich’s arms he was pulling away from me with both arms and both of his hands were behind his back. Lich began leaning to the left,” Jacob quoted Gibson as writing. “I pulled on Lich’s arm and he fell to the ground. While Lich was falling, I instructed get on the ground, knowing that Lich was going to the ground. While he was falling his face was parallel to the ground. Lich’s forehead hit the ground.”
On Aug. 22, Gibson’s attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the former OKCPD officer from the lawsuit, arguing that “no private right of action against defendant as an individual is, or ever was, available to plaintiff” because “there is no basis for extending liability beyond the employer” in federal case law.
Gibson’s motion to dismiss the case is pending before U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma Judge Jodi Dishman.
Read Lich Vu’s second amended lawsuit petition
(Update: This article was updated at 11:09 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 7, to include the type of cancer for which Lich Vu had been receiving treatment.)
