Computer Game Turned Bloody Mismatch Lands 9 Teens in Court

For two San Gabriel Valley teenagers, an Internet computer game was too intense to forget about in cyberspace, so they agreed to fight in person.

It ended with the arrest of nine teenagers charged as adults with 10 felony counts after a bloody mismatch in a secluded Hacienda Heights community. They are all due in Pomona Superior Court today for their preliminary hearings to determine if they should stand trial.

An investigator said the dispute started March 13 when Jia Wen Chen defeated Kuan Chich Tsai in Counterstrike, an online game that pits “terrorists” against “counterterrorists” in a fast-paced shooting free-for-all.

Tsai, who was playing from a computer gaming parlor in Hacienda Heights, challenged Chen, who was in a similar establishment in Rowland Heights, to a fight, said sheriff’s Deputy John Choo, an Asian gang crime specialist who is leading the investigation.

At 7 p.m. the following night, Chen and four of his friends drove to High Tor, a gated community in the Puente Hills in southern Hacienda Heights. Shortly after entering the gates, they were reportedly surrounded by about 30 people, some carrying bats and metal pipes.

“It was a perfect ambush,” Choo said.

The mob smashed the windows of the visitors’ Honda Civic before striking the passengers. One 17-year-old got out of the car, stood nearby and inexplicably eluded the beating, Choo said.

Most severely beaten was Jacky Rui Sun, 22, who had his jaw broken and suffered a deep cut on his head. Choo said Sun was targeted because he was the driver and may have been mistaken for Chen.

A minute later, the mob fled in cars. Choo said some may have been members of an Asian gang. All of those arrested attended Glen A. Wilson High School in Hacienda Heights at the time, and some went to a dance at the school minutes after the assault, Choo said.

Only Sun was hospitalized; the others suffered cuts and bruises. They alerted police after they returned to the Hacienda Heights home of one of them, Choo said.

Two months after the incident, deputies served 18 arrest warrants based on witnesses’ and victims’ accounts and examination of a school yearbook. Seventeen students were plucked out of classrooms, and one was arrested at home, Choo said.

They were held at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey. Many families could not afford the recommended bail of $305,000, and Choo said some of the young people are still in custody. One family started a donation drive in the neighborhood to help bail out their friends’ child.

Of the 18 arrested May 13, the district attorney had sufficient evidence to charge nine, Choo said. They are the 18-year-old Tsai, who allegedly initiated the fight; Christopher Choo, 19; Willy Huang Yao, 17; Denny Jia Gan, 17; Louis Woo Lee, 17; Jack Sun, 17; Paul Shin, 16; Christopher Jeong 17; and Martin Myung, 17.

They are charged with assault with a deadly weapon, mayhem, false imprisonment and vandalism. If a teenager is convicted and proved to be a gang member, his or her sentence can be enhanced by several years under California law.

Myung’s parents have hired a private investigator and an attorney in an effort to help prove that their son was wrongly identified as an assailant. They say he was at home chatting with a friend online and preparing to go to the dance at Wilson High when the attack occurred.

“It was so sad when he said to me, ‘Mommy, I see the world differently now. Why did they arrest an innocent person like me?’ ” said Sunny Myung, who took out loans with her husband for the entire $305,000 bail to free her son after his three nights in juvenile detention.

The Myungs say Martin is a deeply religious boy who spends almost all his Friday evenings at a Bible workshop. They say family friends and teachers have offered to testify on his behalf. School friends even wore homemade “Free Martin” patches on campus, Marvin Myung said.

A lawyer representing Yao said his client went with friends to the scene of the fight after rumors of the showdown started generating excitement among teenagers.

“A lot of innocent bystanders got sucked in,” said attorney Montie Reynolds. “He was standing there like any kid who wants to watch a fight.... Some of the kids thought it was a five-on-five fight. They had no idea gangs were notified.”

The remaining seven defendants and their attorneys could not be reached for comment.