Viet Gangs Blamed in Killing of Mother of 14

Masked robbers who stormed a Santa Ana house Monday night and killed a mother of 14 as she prayed at her bedside probably are part of a highly mobile network of Vietnamese gangs with connections all over North America, authorities said Wednesday.

While police still have few clues to the identity of the youths who shot Huyen Thi Hoang, 46, the outbreak of similar residential robberies in Vietnamese communities throughout the nation points to “some level of organization,” said Santa Ana Police Sgt. John McClain.

“They’re gangs,” he said. “They’re closely knit. They’re organized. They have a broad base of operations, as opposed to Latino gangs. They operate in Santa Ana, Westminster, Garden Grove, but they have connections in San Jose, Houston, probably Tijuana, Portland, Ore., Seattle, Wash.

“They move around a lot and have a lot of friends who will hide them out when they move to a new area,” McClain said.

In Orange County, with one of the largest Vietnamese populations in the state at 65,000, authorities say they have investigated several dozen nearly identical cases over the last two years involving bands of armed, masked Vietnamese youths who storm into Vietnamese homes, hold families at gunpoint and escape with jewelry and cash.

They prey on fellow immigrants because of the well-known habit of Vietnamese keeping valuables hidden at home, and their lingering distrust of the police.

On Monday night, 19-year-old Kim Huong Ngo was returning from night school just after 10 p.m. when a masked youth accosted her in the driveway and, quickly joined by four others, walked her into the house and demanded money.

While four of the gunmen held Kim, her father and 11 of her brothers and sisters in the living room, the fifth began searching the bedrooms. Kim said she heard her mother, who ordinarily retreated to the back of the house each evening to pray, scream “Oh my God.” Then she heard a gunshot.

The robbers, described as 16 to 20 years old, fled the house immediately after the shooting, possibly empty-handed. Hoang died at the scene.

On Wednesday, police were re-interviewing members of the family and tracing reports from the neighbors about a dark green Datsun seen in the neighborhood on four separate occasions recently. There was little else to go on.

“These guys are international. It’s very likely they’re out of the state now. I’d probably be willing to lay some money on it,” said Westminster Police Sgt. Bill Burnett.

“Portland, Seattle, Kansas, Colorado and Texas are major traveling points for these individuals. Tijuana, Mex. Toronto, Canada. They have no base of operations. They don’t have the territorial instinct you would attribute to Hispanic gangs,” Burnett said. “Wherever there’s a Vietnamese community, that’s where they operate.”

Gang members, usually teenagers with no strong family ties, whose parents may have been killed or left behind in Vietnam, tend to travel in “associations” of five to 15 members with a “quasi-leader,” Burnett said. “They all know each other and they all do criminal things together, but it’s really laissez-faire. It’s whatever’s available and whatever they can get.”