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The FBI has released an extensive file on Vincent Chin, the Oak Park man whose killing in 1982 sparked Asian American activism, offering a peak into the agency’s investigation of a civil rights case that drew national attention.
The federal bureau quietly posted last week on its website a 602-page document that contains numerous FBI memos, letters, interviews, notes, newspaper clippings and witness reports that give readers a detailed account of the case of Chin, a Chinese immigrant who died in a Detroit hospital 42 years ago Sunday after being clubbed by Ronald Ebens with a baseball bat.
The FBI Detroit office became involved with the case after the Justice Department launched a civil rights probe into Chin’s death to determine whether the men who attacked him violated federal laws against discrimination on the basis of race and ethnicity. Some witnesses allege anti-Asian racial slurs were hurled at Chin and that Ebens, a former Chrysler plant supervisor, told Chin it’s because of people like him autoworkers were losing jobs. Ebens has denied he made anti-Asian remarks and was acquitted of civil rights charges after a retrial. At the time, the rise of Japan’s auto industry led to some anti-Asian sentiment in Michigan. A Wayne County judge’s sentencing of his assailants, viewed by some as lenient, led to protests by Asian American groups and others in Detroit.
The FBI file appears to contain some documents not seen before, such as interview notes with eyewitnesses who saw Chin being assaulted, providing a dramatic description of Chin’s final hours. The file also contains internal messages among FBI agents and Justice Department attorneys. Many names are redacted and some pages appear to have been deleted before the file was released.
“Identify and interview any eyewitnesses whose accounts of the incident are not made available in official reports,” the national FBI director ordered the FBI Detroit office in a message contained in the FBI file sent April 21, 1983, at the start of the federal investigation. A week later, the director asked the Special Agent in Charge of the Detroit office to complete the investigation in three weeks, a message in the file shows.
The file indicates the FBI closely monitored public anger over the case, making copies of letters and press releases from Chinese American groups and others. After an initial investigation, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan declined to bring charges, but was later overturned by Justice Department officials in Washington, the file shows.
Chin, a draftsman at an Oak Park engineering company, was celebrating with friends at his bachelor party at Fancy Pants Lounge in Highland Park the night of June 19, 1982, when a scuffle broke out that spilled over into the parking lot and then onto Woodward Avenue, where Ebens cracked Chin’s head as he was held down by Michael Nitz, Ebens’ step-son. The FBI file released on June 20 contains a drawing it made of the lounge, showing the chairs around a stage with female dancers where Chin and Ebens sat. A couple of memos in the file said the bat used to beat Chin was a Louisville slugger, Jackie Robinson edition; during court testimony, a witness accidentally broke it while demonstrating how Chin was hit and the FBI then had to find another bat of the same model for later testimony, a memo shows.
In the notes of the FBI’s interviews in the file, some eyewitnesses said anti-Asian remarks were made during a dispute in the club between Chin and Ebens and Nitz. A man says he heard the word “chink” being used in the club towards Chin and a dancer said she heard Ebens tell Chin: “Because of you, you little (expletive), we’re out of work.” Another man said Ebens told him: “I’ll give you $20 if you help us catch the Chinaman,” interview notes in the file show. Other FBI interviews with people who knew Ebens said he was not prejudiced and worked with all groups. Some parts of the file contain information already in the public eye, such as several stories by newspapers, including the Free Press. An FBI agent visited the newsroom of the Free Press to obtain stories the newspaper published on Chin’s case, a memo showed.
Activists not aware of FBI releasing Chin file
Attorneys and activists involved with the case over the decades said they were not aware of the new FBI file until contacted this week by the Free Press and are now reviewing it. On Sunday, some of them, including James Shimoura and Roland Hwang, who were active in publicizing the case in the 1980s, visited Forest Lawn Cemetery in Detroit to pay their respects to Chin at his gravesite on the anniversary of his death at Henry Ford Hospital. They said Chin’s case remains relevant today, with concern about anti-Asian hate and other forms of bigotry.
“He was killed because of his race,” Shimoura, a Sylvan Lake attorney, said. “Fast forward to 2024, what’s going on right now is people are being scapegoated. (Some say) ‘let’s deport all the Muslims,’ a lot of antisemitism going on … turning people away because of the asylum issue in terms of people trying to cross the border.”
Shimoura praised Justice Department attorneys in Washington for taking up the case, saying that local prosecutors and officials in Michigan were not enthusiastic about pursuing justice for Chin.
More:Asian Americans who sparked national movement after Vincent Chin’s death continue fighting
A spokesperson for the Detroit FBI office, Jade Carter, told the Free Press the files were released on the Vault, which is the FBI’s FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) library. Carter declined comment, saying the FBI does not generally speak about files released on the Vault. It’s unclear why the files were released last week.
“What I can say is that the FBI includes records in the Vault after that information has been requested a certain amount of times or after a certain amount of time has passed,” Carter said in a statement. “Also, new files are added there regularly.”
On the same day the FBI released its file on Vincent Chin, it also released other documents, including a 176-page file on Alex Odeh, an Arab American civil rights activist of Palestinian descent killed in a bombing at his office in 1985. The FBI had initially linked the bombing to a Jewish militant group, but the group has denied any ties and no one has been charged in his death. The file released on Odeh, whose case was monitored by some Arab American activists in Michigan, contains several letters written by Arab American advocates to the FBI and Justice Department asking them to investigate his death.
Chinese Americans concerned about light sentence
The FBI file on Chin begins with copies of press releases and letters from the Organization of Chinese Americans expressing outrage over what it said was a lenient sentence by Wayne County Circuit Judge Charles Kaufman for the two men charged in Chin’s death, Ebens and Nitz. Kaufman spared them prison time, handing down three years of probation and a $3,000 fine for each. Kaufman said the two men “weren’t the kind of men you send to jail.”
In response, the Organization of Chinese Americans said in its letter to Kaufman contained in the FBI file that it “is shocked at your decision” and the Detroit chapter of the group said it was outraged, asking Kaufman to give them some jail time.
“Your ruling seems to place so little weight on human life,” Laura Chin, executive director of the organization, said in the letter.
FBI interviews depict Chin’s final hours
The FBI file describes a world where the lives of white, Asian American and Black metro Detroiters came together on a tense summer evening that ended in death. In the notes and messages, the FBI often uses “Oriental” and “Negro” to describe Asian American and Black people. The FBI interviewed two off-duty Highland Park police officers working the night of the incident as private security at a McDonald’s; the FBI’s notes described the officers as Negro men who witnessed Chin being beaten and intervened.
One of the officers, whose names were redacted, told the FBI a “younger white male (Nitz) held Vincent Chin forcibly” the night of June 19 after chasing them. Chin then “broke away and started running northbound in the southbound lane of Woodward Avenue,” the FBI’s notes read. Another witness driving nearby described by the FBI as a Black woman, said she spotted Chin being chased by Ebens and Nitz and tried to warn him.
“She stated that from Chin’s actions, constantly looking around, she felt that he was being chased by the two white males (she had seen) in the Fancy Pants parking lounge,” the FBI’s notes read. “She then stated that she yelled at Chin and told him that they were coming after him.”
Reports in the Free Press and Chicago Tribune contained in the file said Ebens then struck Chin around the knees and chest. Chin fell and Ebens then “struck him four times in the head with the bat.”
The officer said he repeatedly told Ebens to put the bat down. An EMS/fire fighter who responded told the FBI that Ebens said after the beating: “That’s right, I did it. If I had it my way, you would be there too” as he was “pointing to another Oriental male” who was a friend of Chin, the FBI’s interview notes read.
“It isn’t fair,” were Chin’s last words as his friend Jimmy Choi cradled his head in his lap.
In the club earlier that night, after someone called Chin a “nip,” an anti-Japanese slur, Choi said he had replied: “We are not Japanese.” Asian American activists have said that Chin was not killed because he was mistaken for being Japanese, but because he was of Asian descent.
Justice Department reversed decision of Detroit prosecutors
On June 15, 1983, Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan John Thompson communicated with the FBI Detroit office to speak about the Chin case. Thompson “advised that sufficient investigation had been conducted,” an FBI memo said.
Thompson concluded there was not enough evidence to pursue a civil rights case. But a couple of weeks later, a Justice Department attorney, Ronald Kennelly, reversed that decision, requesting a further investigation.
“Detroit will reopen this case,” an FBI supervisor said in a message to the FBI Detroit Special Agent in Charge.
In the first civil rights trial, Nitz was acquitted of both civil rights charges filed against him while Ebens was found guilty of one of them. Ebens was freed on bond and then a federal appeals court, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, ruled that “Ebens was denied a fair trial,” citing the extensive media publicity of the case and saying that some of the witnesses were coached. In the retrial in 1987, Ebens was acquited. He later lost a civil case seeking damanges and still owes money to the estate of Chin. Ebens could not be reached for comment this week.
Shimoura said the case showed how Asian Americans could mobilize and work together across ethnic lines. He criticized Wayne County prosecutors for not taking the case of Chin seriously. At the time, the ACLU was also not supportive, said activists.
Last week, members of the the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus released statements ahead of the 42nd anniversary of Chin’s death.
“Forty-two years ago, Vincent Chin was beaten to death in the heart of my district,” said U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar, D-Detroit, an immigrant from India who is the first member of Congress from Michigan of Asian descent and who represents the area where Chin was attacked. “With violence against the (Asian American) community reaching all-time highs, Vincent’s murder is a reminder of the work we still have to do to make sure all Americans feel safe in their own skin.”
Contact Niraj Warikoo:nwarikoo@freepress.com or X @nwarikoo
Below is a copy of the 602-page file on Vincent Chin released on June 20, 2024, by the FBI:
Embedded content: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24778591/vincent-chin.pdf