DUBLIN, CALIF. — On Aug. 11, two police officers in this community east of the San Francisco Bay responded to calls that there was screaming coming from a house on Innisbrook Way. They entered to find on the stairwell a man — later identified as Kwang Tae Lee, who was visiting from Korea — holding a knife. The officers ordered Lee, who was inebriated at the time and did not speak English, to drop the knife. When he didn’t, one of the officers shot him, causing him to stumble, and then shot him several more times. They thought Lee was lunging at them, the officers later explained. At least one of the bullets passed through Lee’s body, through a closed door behind him, and struck Richard Kim, Lee’s brother-in-law, in the head. Lee was pronounced dead at the scene. Kim died three days later.

The police ordered Kim’s wife, Jeeyoung Kim, and Lee’s wife to leave the home and sent them to a hotel.

“Without any grief counseling, no support, nothing,” says Elizabeth Suk, a social worker with the newly formed Bay Area Korean American Justice Coalition. Hotel management later demanded that the widows pay for the rooms.

Following the shooting, the Dublin Police Department released a statement that the shootings were a justified use of force. “Before there was an investigation or an autopsy report was even completed,” says Suk. The coalition is now demanding a public investigation into the shootings, as well as cultural sensitivity and de-escalation training for area police officers.

“Out of this tragic event, we’ve really seen the community come together and bridge the generational gaps,” Suk says. “Mrs. Jeeyoung Kim, who was very distraught and very emotional at first, was very energized by seeing that the community was really behind her. [A reporter from] KTVU asked her in an interview whether this was going to politicize the Korean American community, and she said, ‘Definitely. I’m ready for the long fight.’”