In Boston, Victim Finally Stands Up to His Tormentors

Den Vo’s problems with a Vietnamese street gang began a year ago when young thugs began coming into his market, a busy variety store on the fringe of Boston’s Chinatown neighborhood.

They wanted money; they wanted food. Sometimes Den Vo paid. Sometimes not.

“They threatened me with death if I didn’t pay,” said Vo, a friendly man who beams when he smiles. “Sometimes they asked for $100, $50, but when I refused them, they threw everything around and then ran away. They made many trouble every day.”

Vo, now 54, taught high school in Vietnam from 1954 to 1960. He and his wife also ran a combination boutique and hardware store. As the Vietnam War escalated, he was drafted. He was a South Vietnamese army captain when Saigon fell in 1975.

The Communist government, he said, took his business, took his home and put him in a prison camp. In 1980 he escaped, then fled Vietnam in a small fishing boat to the South China Sea and a harrowing trip to freedom in Thailand.

“My boat, 3 meters by 12 meters (about 9 feet by 37 feet), held 130 people. It was very dangerous. Fifty, 60 people died on the high seas,” Vo said. “The water was coming in. Pirates robbed us 14 times, stealing gold and diamonds. We were at sea seven days without a motor.”

Eventually he made his way to a succession of refugee camps. He found a sponsor and came to Boston in 1981, hoping he could work and save enough money to help bring over his wife and his nine children, ages 14 to 28, who are still in Vietnam.

The Vietnam Market that Vo opened four years ago with borrowed money is filled with food and household items. There is a full wall of cassette tapes of Asian music; there are bins of noodles and fresh vegetables, coolers of meat, displays of clothes, rice cookers, dishes and books.

With pride, Vo flips through an album filled with color snapshots of his wife and children and his home. One page contains a faded black-and-white picture of Vo and his wife in traditional wedding garb.

Every month, he sends a box full of clothing and dried food home to his family. “And I live here in poverty,” he said.

Police allege that Vo’s youth gang troubles stem from Mai Song, alleged leader of a 35-member street gang preying on Chinatown businesses.

There are about 150 Vietnamese youths involved in three different gangs whose turfs include Chinatown and Asian pockets in two other city neighborhoods--Brighton and Dorchester--investigators say.

Song, 25, is described by his lawyer as a hard-working immigrant. He too came to Boston in 1981 from a resettlement camp, having left his elderly parents behind in Vietnam. Police say Song has been arrested four times on weapons and drug charges, once for allegedly selling heroin.

Most Chinatown gang victims are shopkeepers and restaurateurs. The young gangs rule by threats and become bolder each time, demanding larger amounts of cash and goods.

This winter, Den Vo decided he would no longer let others take advantage of his hard work. “We would lose everything if we didn’t stop them,” Vo said. “I don’t care. I do the right thing.”

He went to the police and complained. He wanted to do so anonymously, as many of his neighbors had. But police said they needed eyewitness testimony to lock up suspects. That kind of cooperation is rare in Asian communities across the United States.

“We started getting mean to businessmen, telling (them) they either had to suffer in silence or go to the court system,” Detective Kathy Johnston said.

Vo testified before a grand jury in spite of two death threats. Mai Song was arrested on robbery charges.

Then Vo went to Municipal Court, testifying against Mai Song, who was jailed for a year on a probation violation and awaits trial on the new robbery charge.

Vo found no support from his fellow merchants in court that day. They were afraid to be seen there.

“They’re really afraid of these kids,” Johnston said. “They’re waiting to see what happens. If Den Vo succeeds here, and the suspect stays in jail, they may think of cooperating.

“When we arrested Mai Song at one of his hangouts, he came in with a couple of kids. Within five minutes there were 35 of them in there. If that crew came into my store, I’d be afraid of them too.”

Now, in spite of the threats, there appears to be no trouble.

On a February day so chilly that Vo wore his winter hat and knitted cap inside the market, a squad car was parked directly across Tremont Street on Boston Common.

“They’re not public about it, but the business community has backed him; the community at large has backed him. That’s something we’ve been looking for for years,” said Boston Police Supt. John Gifford. “We’ve turned that element of anonymity that the criminal element uses to instill fear, and now we’re working on the predators.”

Vo has filed an application to bring his family to Boston from Vietnam.