Gunmen in Ski Masks Terrorize Vietnamese at New Year Party

Nine to 12 gunmen in ski masks burst into a New Year’s Eve party in Garden Grove, demanding money and jewelry and sending many of the 60 Vietnamese partygoers screaming and running into the street, police and witnesses said.

One robber hit a guest on the head with a gun butt. About five shots were fired at onlookers when the attackers later fled in an automobile. No one was hit.

The attack occurred in a private home where adults and children had gathered to celebrate. Police said it was the latest in a series of residential robberies to occur in the Vietnamese refugee communities of Garden Grove, Westminster and Santa Ana in recent years.

Police said they did not know yet how much money and jewelry was taken.

On Thursday, they were trying to sort out the sometimes conflicting versions of what happened by interviewing the 30 or so adults who were still at the house when officers arrived after the attack. Many of the victims do not speak English.

A Vietnamese woman, who lives with several relatives at the house, said the robbers came in through a side yard gate. Brandishing guns, they confronted guests on the rear patio and shouted orders in Vietnamese, ushering people into the house, she said.

“They said: ‘Everybody stay’ or they would kill them,” she recalled. “So nobody listened to them and everybody run.”

The woman, who did not want her name to be used, said one guest broke the kitchen window and leaped through it to escape. About 20 children inside the house remained in bedrooms during the two- or three-minute episode, while many adults fled to the street, and some drove away, she said.

She said her sister, in a bedroom with the children, called police.

A half block away, Jim Steams, 25, of Garden Grove, was taking trash to the curb when he noticed a sports car with several Asians pulling away.

A man with a handgun “was hanging out the car window,” Steams said. “One man did the shooting. It looked like a .22 (caliber handgun) and it sounded like a .22.”

The gunman appeared to be aiming at a group of about 20 people in front of the house, he said.

Authorities said numerous Vietnamese families have been robbed in their homes by young Vietnamese in Garden Grove and surrounding areas in recent years.

Garden Grove Police Sgt. Bruce Beauchamp said residential robberies were frequent in Garden Grove in 1984, but that the New Year’s raid is the largest incident he can recall.

“We went through a rash of them where they were doing it fairly often a year or so ago,” said

Beauchamp said police have no suspects and few leads to pursue on the latest attack. No one reported injuries serious enough to require hospital treatment, he said.