NIC MIU

ANDREW DITTMANN INTERVIEW WITH ALEX VANG


Dusty: i’m dusty with the St. Croix County sheriff’s office this is my partner Andy Dittman we work for St. Croix county as I said we’re both investigators there what we’re doing is just interviewing anybody and everybody that was present and around the situation and what i’m looking for is just the truth i’m not looking for drinking [inaudible] we’ll deal with it there’s no citations or nothing we just want the truth here ok?
Alex: ok
Dusty: ok so some of the questions might be difficult to answer just be honest ok that’s all we’re looking for. What’s your first name
Alex: Alexander or Alex kou
Dusty: Alex hold on one second what’s your middle name
Alex: kou k-o-u 
Dusty: k-l-u
Alex: o-u
Dittman pulls the sister and her husband aside to get their information. Then walks back over when dusty is already in the middle of the interview with Alex
Dusty: so then you guys rent the tube right away when you got there and departed
Alex: yeah
Dusty: on the river?
Alex: yeah we were on the river
Dusty: ok did you guys meet anybody else there? know anybody else there
Alex: no it was nothing more than just [inaudible]
Dusty: so you guys launched, going down the river, what’s happening
Alex: maybe for the first hour and half 2 hours we were just cruising, having fun. Nothing really crazy at all it was really just when we got to that one spot where it went down
Dusty: so you’re tubing down the river, everything’s good you’re having a good time there’s all those tubers going down, there’s people right?
Alex:  yeah, yeah
Dusty: um and you said so you come around to this spot that the incident happened can you describe what’s taking place, what happened
Alex: so we go down it seems like there was our group and then maybe a group of 10 [inaudible] then we just see this guy snorkeling here by himself and we were just saying oh he’s snorkeling by himself
Dusty: when you say snorkeling what does that mean
Alex: he had like a tube and goggles
Dusty: what else
Alex: he was just wearing swim shorts
Dusty: what color were those
Alex: i wasn’t focused on that honestly sorry
Dusty: wearing a shirt?
Alex: no but he was a bigger guy, hairy chest, i swear he had an accent of like italian, russian, something like that. He was just chirping us back and we were like just i don’t know and then he was becoming weird almost, like he was giving me a weird vibe and then he really got close to our thing
Dusty: what’s your thing
Alex: our tube, sorry, our set up. And then we were like ok bro you’re being really weird why are you being so weird. We almost started calling him like predator like pedophile like get away from us then he came to the distance where i almost had to get out of my thing because i needed to start making distance between me and him
Dusty: ok
Alex:and then that’s when the group that was 10 or 20 yards away from us started like ok yeah ok you need to get away from these kids. It was actually a white lady. A blonde white lady came up and she was like ok yeah you need to leave them alone you know these are just kids you’re being really weird and then those people came up with them and then it escalated where he literally hit her like slapped her to the ground
Dusty: open hand?
Alex: open hand, open hand im pretty sure but like knocked her to the ground and then honestly our group we didn’t really want anything to do with it cause we obviously knew it was wrong that he did that but we weren’t the people like oh you hit the woman, we weren’t the people who were hitting him and knocking him into the water and stuff
Dusty: so after he hits this girl
Alex: that’s where it escalated yeah
Dusty: so the group that was with that girl
Alex: i’m pretty sure that group and then maybe another group came and was like oh you can’t be hitting a girl and starting hitting him to the ground and then maybe from that
Dusty: when you say hitting him to the ground what do you mean
Alex: they were like pushing him, punching him. It was to the point where there was one punch that punched him pretty good where he was pretty dazed i thought he was knocked out almost fell into the water but from that situation where they hit him back after he hit the girl that’s like from maybe there to like 25 seconds maybe after that it’s all a blur i look to my right my friend has a huge gash in his stomach, he’s looking at me, he falls forward
Dusty: which friend is this
Alex: Isaac Shuman
Dusty: ok
Alex: and i look around i see a guy with his stabbed guts out like horrifying. I heard 5 people got stabbed i didn’t even see the other people. I saw my friend and i saw the guy with the guts out. I went straight to my friend. He fell like. I was probably the closest to him. He fell near, like right in front of me i just bleeding out holding it. I couldn’t even see the guy go away or anything but i know my friend Jawahn recorded a little bit of the initial introduction to him at least
Dusty: so as soon as you realized this guy had stabbed some people, one of them being your friend, you just started tending to your friend?
Alex: yeah no i instantly got to my friend like yeah ok we need to bring him to the shore we need to bring him to the bridge it was me and Owen Peloquin, you guys talked to him for a second yeah we took him, we were trying to hold down his wound i was just think we should get this guy to the bridge this is horrible i saw the guy getting taken care of maybe 15 yards away with the guts spilling out and like yeah it just took forever for the ambulance to get there [inaudible] um
Dusty: did you ever see the guy you described snorkeling holding  a knife or anything 
Alex: no i swear i saw him get knocked down and saw him charge other people but i swear i thought he we just [inaudible] you know but i didn’t really notice the knife whatsoever until people around me were bleeding out
DUsty: ok
Alex: so its like i saw him for a second for a second then he’s in a rumble then all of the sudden he’s gone
Dusty: you didn’t see him after that and then it was all tending to the emergency
Alex: exactly i was stressing yeah i was all over the place honestly
Dittman: do you ever recall seeing the knife at any point whether before or after or during the
Alex shakes his head no
Dusty: where was Isaac in all this
Alex: honestly i have no clue cause i was focused on him hitting the girl and i swear he was back by the tubes tending to the tubes cause we were at a point where it was still rushing pretty well so i knew he wasn’t like i don’t even remember seeing him in the vicinity of the brawl like if anything i was closer to the guy than he was and then i just know he was to my right a little bit maybe here i was here in the beginning of the brawl and then Isaac was i swear in this 
Dusty: ok
Alex: but i don’t know
Dusty: was Isaac saying anything to the guy
Alex: no no he was almost [inaudible]
Dusty: and you said you guys were kind of chirping back and forth
Alex: yeah i mean we were just being stupid just saying things obviously not trying to pick a fight or anything just saying what
Dusty: but you were saying you were weirded out there were some things that stood out to you
Alex: yeah there was one point where we did call him a weirdo, weirdo, pedophile and then he tried to stop our tubes and that’s when we were really really weirded out like he got in the way
Dusty: when you say weirded out were you weirded out what does weirded out mean to you, scared
Alex: yeah like scared like i don’t know what his intentions are right now like he looks hostile like he could hurt somebody but obviously you never know he could just be really mad but obviously not to the level where he’s going to stab someone but
Dusty: ok
Alex:i think he was drunk cause he just wasn’t acting right whatsoever
Dusty: ok do you have any questions um it’s very important that you lean on family and friends tonight cause what you went through was an extremely not normal day so make sure you talk to your sister, your mom [inaudible] just take care of yourself what you went through today is pretty traumatic experience
Dittman: do mom and dad know what’s happened today where are they
Alex: on a trip to seattle
Dittman: oh ok
Dusty: that’s what i got i’m going to give you a card with my number on it and if you have any questions you can call me