Finding Answers in Prof.’s Death

As a signatory of the letter requesting an investigation by the Orange County Grand Jury of the gangs afflicting the Vietnamese community, I was, to be sure, pleased with your editorial (May 6) supporting this request. Your editorial was certainly correct in surmising that many of the signatories became aware of these gangs after the murder of professor Edward Cooperman in his office at Cal State Fullerton on Oct. 13, 1984.

Nonetheless, the editorial contained some misinformation. Vietnamese paramilitary gangs have taken public “credit” for several murders in the United States of Vietnamese nationals and U.S. citizens.

Despite efforts to cooperate in the investigation, concerned citizens and friends of professor Cooperman were unable to get the district attorney’s office to follow up on key leads suggesting a conspiracy in the murder.

These friends and associates cannot be held responsible for the failure of the district attorney’s office to present evidence in court. Indeed, the handling of the murder trial by the district attorney’s office has shocked many in the Orange County legal establishment.

The answer to who ordered Cooperman’s death and who heads the gangs afflicting the overwhelmingly hard-working and law-abiding Vietnamese community lies in the Vietnamese community. Given that group’s experience with public authorities in South Vietnam, it is going to be very difficult to secure witnesses to testify.

Perhaps the grand jury’s investigation will neither shed light on the Cooperman case nor on the leadership of the gangs. Perhaps, all it may do is relieve some of the paramilitary gang pressure on the Vietnamese community. Even Still, Edward Cooperman would have been pleased.

SHELDON MARAM

Fullerton