Viet Youths Say Police Photo Raids Are Harassment

Lan Nguyen, manager of an East San Diego cafe that attracts mostly Vietnamese youths, remembers well the day last year when police entered the restaurant unannounced about 6 p.m., locked the doors behind them, and asked questions of his customers. Because he had been in this country only two years then, Nguyen said he did not object when the officers lined up 10 boys against the wall, photographed them and left after getting their names and addresses.

Phuoc Hang, 13, also remembers. He says he was at the Cafe Mimosa--the restaurant managed by Nguyen that also has video games and pool tables the youths like to use--when the police gang detail arrived. No arrests were made on three occasions he has been photographed at different locations, Phuoc said.

“We ask them why they are taking our pictures and they tell us to shut up or they’ll arrest us,” he said.

Law enforcement officials say there is nothing illegal about photographing youths suspected of being gang members. They defend the practice as the most effective way of keeping tabs on what they say is increasing criminal activity by Vietnamese and other youths.

However, Asian community activists and several attorneys have questioned the legality of the photo taking, which they allege amounts to nothing less than keeping a blatantly illegal dossier on people who have committed no crimes. This practice, the critics say, is creating a serious rift between the Vietnamese community and San Diego police, who are viewed with distrust in the Southeast Asian community. The problem is further compounded, they say, by the officers’ ignorance of Vietnamese culture.

Nguyen, who served in the South Vietnamese army for 23 years before coming to this country, described the year-old incident as if it were yesterday. He said that at least 10 uniformed policemen entered the cafe, while 10 plainclothes officers remained outside.

Inside, he said, “They put everyone against the wall and took their photos. The police told me they had to check the boys, but they didn’t arrest anybody. I had been in the United States only a short time, so I didn’t know about the rules. Some people have told me this is not good.”

Amy Okamura, counseling director at the United Pacific Asian Coalition (UPAC), said her office has received reports of police entering other Vietnamese cafes, where they ordered youths to remove their shirts. The youths were then photographed, front and back.

Several Vietnamese youths interviewed in Vietnamese cafes along El Cajon Boulevard said police use a similar tactic on the street, where they frequently pull them over when they’re riding in cars to question and photograph them before letting them go.

A law enforcement official who specializes in gang-related cases and who did not want to be identified explained that police frequently employ this tactic to determine who is a gang member by identifying symbols in the form of scars or tattoos that show their affiliation.

The escalating tension between the Vietnamese community and police came to a head earlier this month at the the trial of Bao Hoang, 15, who was charged in the Sept. 11 stabbing of Vincent Chirafisi, 24. Chirafisi is now paralyzed on his right side, after being attacked by five Vietnamese youths. The fight started when Chirafisi objected to a loud party some Vietnamese youths were attending at the apartment next to his.

Ten days before that attack, Bao and five other Vietnamese youths were stopped by police while riding in a car. According to Margie Woods, Bao’s attorney, the police report said the car was stopped because undercover officers on the gang detail suspected that the driver was intoxicated.

“They pulled all the guys out, interrogated them, photographed them and let them go. No charges were filed against any of them,” Woods said. Among those photographed that night was Duc Minh Hoang, 18, who later admitted he joined in the attack on Chirafisi. Hoang, who is no relation to Bao, is awaiting trial in Superior Court.

Woods and law enforcement officials said that Duc Hoang denied that Bao was one of the assailants and told police that his accomplices were five transient Vietnamese youths who fled to Texas after the incident. However, investigators showed Chirafisi and his wife the photos taken on Sept. 1 and they identified Bao as the youth who wielded the knife.

But when the case went to trial two months later, the Chirafisis recanted their identifications of Bao, who had been charged with attempted murder and assault, and he was subsequently acquitted. During the trial, Chirafisi said he was groggy from the effects of pain-killing medication when he identified Bao as the youth who stabbed him. He said he was no longer sure if Bao was the assailant. Mrs. Chirafisi also testified that she was no longer completely sure that it was Bao who stabbed her husband.

Bao’s case was significant because it led to a confrontation between UPAC, an activist group in San Diego’s Asian community, and police. UPAC officials say they have received numerous complaints from Vietnamese youths and cafe owners about police harassment in the community. Members of the group, accompanied by Woods and American Civil Liberties Union attorney Greg Marshall, met with police officials after Bao’s acquittal to complain about the police practice of detaining and photographing Vietnamese youths.

“There are some human rights at stake here,” Okamura said. “ . . . The ACLU said that amassing a picture file violates the right to privacy. But the police said that, under reasonable suspicion, they can continue to do this.”

Although Bao claims that officers have stopped and photographed him 10 times in the last year, at the trial police acknowledged photographing him on only two occasions. Marshall called the incidents violations of privacy that could produce a tragic ending, as almost occurred in Bao’s case.

“There’s always a risk that some kid whose photo was taken illegally will be unjustly charged with a crime if his picture is shown to a crime victim,” Marshall said.

The gang specialist argued that the practice is legal and said that taking photographs of suspicious persons helps the police keep out of San Diego the likes of violent Vietnamese gang members who have plagued Orange and Los Angeles counties.

Lt. Doug Price, who supervises the department’s gang unit, said that investigators have already uncovered evidence that Vietnamese gang members from Orange and Los Angeles counties are operating in San Diego.

“They’re very fluid, very mobile. We’ve recovered property stolen (by suspected gang members) in Orange County,” said Price.

However, Price emphasized that Vietnamese gangs that operate in other California cities and Texas are made up mostly of former Vietnamese soldiers who deal in organized crime, much like the Mafia. Price said that “only a small percentage” of the 1,200 documented gang members in San Diego are Vietnamese or Indochinese, and most of them are not gang members in the traditional sense because “they don’t claim turf” and most of their victims are fellow refugees.

Price said his office has received “real good information” about Vietnamese youths who are extorting merchants in the Vietnamese community. However, Price said that his men are frustrated in their attempts to stop this activity because the merchants are afraid to report the extortions.

“Frankly, we don’t have any inroads into the community. It appears that they’re not comfortable and secure with the system yet,” Price said. “I can only speculate that they want to deal with these problems on their own . . . . We recently hired a Vietnamese-speaking community service officer who we hope will help us win the trust of the community.”

The anonymous law-enforcement official suggested that until police win that trust, an effective way of dealing with crime in the Vietnamese community is by continuing to stop and photograph youths in the hopes of curtailing criminal activity.

“On occasion and under circumstances that are warranted, there’s nothing wrong with the police doing field interviews and photographing suspects,” he said.

But while law enforcement officials say they are working to win the confidence of the Vietnamese community, Woods and Okamura suggest that the two groups are too alienated from each other to make it an easy transition for the police.

“The problem is that the police don’t understand Asians. I asked Lt. Price how much formal training the gang unit members have in Asian culture . . . I had to ask him three times before I got a response from him, which was ‘none,’ ” Okamura said.

Price said he hopes that the new community service officer, who is Vietnamese, can sensitize officers to Vietnamese culture.

Jean Nidorf, a nationally recognized psychotherapist who has specialized in treating Southeast Asian refugees since 1977, said there will have to be a lot of educating. Police who have dealt with Vietnamese youths, she said, often misinterpret their attitudes toward authority.

“The police are angered and dismayed by the Vietnamese kids’ reaction to what is done to them. The Vietnamese value stoicism. They’re proud and don’t cower in the presence of the police. . . . They fan the flames of police anger by not responding physically to taunts and racial slurs,” Nidorf said.

Okamura said that the biggest problem facing both groups is the lack of communication.

“We tried to emphasize to the police that the Vietnamese kids are frustrated with the police,” said. “First of all, there’s the language barrier . . . and the police tend to look with suspicion at any group of Vietnamese kids hanging out together . . . The language problem forces Vietnamese kids to stick with their peer group.”

Nidorf agreed that the police should not single out the Vietnamese youths for choosing to be with each other.

“There’s nothing unusual or sinister about a recently arrived immigrant hanging around with his own people . . . Would you call a group of white school kids who hang around the Jack in the Box at the University Towne Centre a gang? Why are the Vietnamese kids suspicious but not the other kids? Is it because they are different?” Nidorf said.

Meanwhile, Woods said that Bao has been so intimidated by police that he is moving out of San Diego. Woods and Nidorf, who was hired by the San Diego County Probation Department to evaluate Bao, both recommended that the youth move to an undisclosed location, leaving his mother and younger sister behind.

“It’s really distressing . . . here’s a family who escaped communism and repression in Vietnam and came to this country in search of freedom, only to get similar treatment in San Diego,” Woods said.