Viet Gangs Probably Part of International Network, Lawmen Say

The masked youths who stormed a Santa Ana house and shot a mother of 14 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, Monday night as she prayed at her bedside, 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.”

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 past 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 Vietnamese habit of 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 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. 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, Mexico; 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 teen-agers 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.”

Traced to Houston

In May of last year, Santa Ana police arrested a man in Houston suspected of storming into a birthday party in Santa Ana and shooting two people, killing a 16-year-old girl. He had been traced from Santa Ana to Galveston, Tex., New Orleans, Washington, Chicago, Tijuana and finally Houston.

Arrests are becoming more common as the Vietnamese, alarmed over the increasing frequency of the robberies, have become less hesitant to call police and identify suspects, police say.

On April 21, Anaheim police arrested five teen-agers and a 22-year-old Riverside man a few hours after several Vietnamese youths with handguns stormed into a home and fled with cash, jewelry and other valuables.

The family had immediately telephoned police, who stopped several of the youths because of a broken headlight on the car they were driving and became suspicious while questioning them, Anaheim Police Sgt. John Haradon said.

Still, Burnett estimates that for every residential robbery the city investigates--an average of one a month--another five go unreported.

Reprisals Feared

Some families, he said, may be collecting welfare or avoiding income tax and don’t want police to know of their hidden valuables. Others fear reprisals from the robbers. Some feel the police aren’t interested in a crime problem limited to the Vietnamese community.

Later this month, Westminster will be host to a task force of law enforcement agencies from all over California and elsewhere in the nation to discuss how to combine efforts to deal with the gang problem.

“We’re trying to get all the agencies together to start trying to track some of these individuals and try to work together . . . because it’s the only way,” Burnett said. “It’s not just Orange County, it’s statewide. It’s an international problem. We have to start working together.”