Death Threats Prompt Protection for Officer
Los Angeles police have given protection to Officer Archie Nagao in response to death threats made against him by associates of Asian crime gang members killed in a Chinatown shoot-out last year, authorities said Tuesday.
Nagao’s partner, Duane Johnson, was killed in the exchange of gunfire.
Alhambra police stopped four Asian men in a car Dec. 18 and seized a .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol and a Mac-10 machine pistol, police said. Those arrests occurred a day before the first anniversary of the shoot-out at the Jin Hing Jade and Jewelry store that left two robbers dead, a third wounded and the store owner’s son wounded.
Cmdr. William Booth, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesman, said the department was aware of a rumor that associates of the Asian gang members killed in the Chinatown shoot-out were going to kill “the Japanese officer” involved in the incident.
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