Huntington Beach Police Shooting Investigated

The Orange County district attorney’s office is investigating the police shooting death Thursday of Thinh Le Ngo, 34, of Huntington Beach, who allegedly threatened the officer in Ngo’s home with a knife after police had been summoned by the man’s sister.

On Friday, police cordoned off the home at 17162 Wildrose Lane and refused to release the name of the officer involved.

A district attorney’s employee who asked not to be identified said that one officer was in the house at the time of the shooting and that he fired twice.

The district attorney’s investigation is routine, he said, “whenever police officers are involved in deaths by use of force.”

Ngo’s sister, who lived with him and other family members, arrived at a neighbor’s house three doors away from the home Thursday night looking “scared and with a red face,” the neighbor said. “She could hardly dial the phone.”

The sister asked to use the neighbor’s phone to call police. The neighbor, who did not want to be identified, said the sister told him Ngo threatened her with a knife after he had broken a piece of her crystal and she had complained. The sister said Ngo had warned her, “I’ll kill you. You talk too much.”

The neighbor said Ngo’s sister wanted Ngo to be “taken to a hospital so he could be cared for.”

She then returned home. Soon afterward, the neighbor said, police arrived and he heard “one or two shots.”

He said Ngo’s sister ran from the house and fainted on the lawn.

A month ago, the neighbor said, he heard shouting and arguing coming from the Ngo house. He said up to seven people lived in the house, including two children.

Police said Ngo was dead when paramedics arrived.