Man Charged in Slaying of Immigrant : From Broken Home to the Grip of Gangs

Three weeks ago, friends and relatives told the story of Byung Jin Kim.

They recalled how the Korean immigrant arrived in the United States 22 years ago, working tirelessly at odd jobs until he could open his own restaurant and, later, buy a Hawthorne liquor store.

The flight from an oppressive foreign government, the sacrifice and hard work, and the dreams of the future all had a familiar ring. It was the paean of the immigrant.

But it was also an elegy for Kim, 40, who was shot to death Aug. 19 in the front seat of his van. He had been robbed of $80,000 after he made a bank withdrawal in preparation for another day of toil.

In the nearly three weeks since his death, a strikingly different but no less familiar tale has emerged. It is the story of Omar (Chico) Dent III, the man charged with the murder.

Problems Since Youth

Interviews with homicide detectives, prosecutors and prison officials and a review of Dent’s arrest and probation records depict a man who grew up in a broken home, passed through drug abuse and petty crimes into membership in one of Los Angeles’ most violent street gangs.

The record also shows that despite 15 arrests and a prior conviction in the shooting death of another man, Dent spent a little more than three years in prison and was free on parole when he allegedly shot Kim.

Dent, 25, has pleaded not guilty to the crime and is being held without bail pending a preliminary hearing Oct. 7. His lawyer declined to comment on the case or to let Dent speak to a reporter. Family members did not respond to requests for interviews.

But police said they are all too familiar with Dent and not surprised that he has been charged with murder for the second time in his young life. Said Officer Ronald Cade of the Los Angeles Police Department’s gang detail: “It was just a matter of time with him.”

Omar Dent was raised in Los Angeles, one of seven children reared by his mother. His father left home when the boy was 6 and welfare paid the family’s bills, according to a report by a county probation officer.

The “rap sheet” that lists Dent’s arrests, included in court records, runs three pages. It shows that he was arrested at age 14 for burglary, the first of seven arrests as a juvenile.

The outcome of juvenile court proceedings are not public record, but Dent later admitted that the charge resulted after he broke into a home, according to a probation report filed six years later in another case. Dent told the probation officer that the case was “kicked out” of juvenile court.

It was not the last time that Dent would be arrested, only to see the charges against him dropped.

Before his 18th birthday, Dent was arrested at various times for assault with a deadly weapon, throwing a substance at a vehicle, taking a vehicle without the owner’s consent, kidnaping, receiving stolen property and possessing marijuana for sale.

The 1983 probation report said only one of the charges resulted in jail time: a 10-week term in juvenile camp that he served when he was 16 on the taking-a-vehicle charge.

Dent told a probation officer that most of the other charges were not pursued, according to the probation report, although the report does not specify why.

Dent dropped out of school after the 11th grade and smoked marijuana and drank a quart of beer a day, the report says. He held a few odd jobs and once took a Comprehensive Employment Training Act job, the report says, but he apparently never worked steadily.

Joined Particularly Violent Gang

Los Angeles police say Dent joined a particularly violent group of street hoodlums called the Eight-Trey Gangster Crips. The street thugs claim an impoverished Los Angeles neighborhood east of Inglewood and west of the Harbor Freeway.

Prosecutors say that Dent was with his gang buddies on the night of March 31, 1983, when they came to a chicken takeout stand at Vermont and Florence avenues about 10:30 p.m., according to police.

Roberto Hernandez, a musician on a dinner break from a gig at a local bar, was there, too. Investigators speculated that Hernandez may have refused to cooperate when the gang members tried to rob him of the $1,000 he was carrying.

Police reports say that Dent approached Hernandez, 23, and shot him in the head at point-blank range with a snub-nosed 38-caliber revolver.

Hernandez died in a hospital. Dent was charged with murder.

But, according to a district attorney’s report, witnesses would not identify Dent and his buddies because they feared the gang. Another witness who initially identified Dent was himself a suspect in a burglary, the report said, and his testimony might not have been credible.

Because of the weaknesses in its case, the district attorney’s office agreed to let Dent plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter.

Dent, 20, received a four-year prison sentence, instead of the maximum six-year term. Court records do not indicate if the shorter sentence was part of the plea agreement.

Despite the severity of the crime, there is no provision in state law under which Dent could have been required to serve the entire term, said Jerry Dimaggio, regional administrator for the parole division of the state Department of Corrections.

State parole guidelines permit most inmates to cut their prison time in half by earning credits for prison work and good behavior. Dent was no exception.

He was trained as a firefighter, served at three work camps in Southern California and had no disciplinary problems, earning enough credits to be freed in July, 1985, just two years and three months after he was arrested for murder.

But in June, 1986, he again ran into trouble with authorities.

Series of Infractions

He was arrested for breaking parole regulations by failing to submit to drug testing after he took cocaine, parole administrator Dimaggio said. Once back in prison, Dent was accused of attacking a guard, extending his second prison stay to a total of nine months.

On two other occasions, Dent would violate parole and be returned to prison. The first was less than three months after his March, 1987, release, when he was again returned to prison for refusing to take a drug test. He was released four months later, but was on the street for just a month and a half before violating parole again, Dimaggio said, this time for challenging police. Although he denied it, Los Angeles police charged that Dent challenged two patrolmen by yelling gang slogans and “LAPD killer here! I’ll kill the police.”

Dent spent six more months in prison for that violation and was released on parole for the fourth time on April 29 of this year.

Felons can be sent back to prison for a maximum of one year each time they are cited for violating their parole, according to state law. Probation officials used a standard schedule in determining how long Dent had to serve for each of his parole violations, Dimaggio said.

Less than four months after his last release, Dent would be charged with the murder of Byung Jin Kim.

Effect of Gangs

Police, prosecutors and parole officials said Dent’s record is not unusual. They blamed his quick return to the streets on the inability to find witnesses whose testimony in the 1983 case might have led to a murder conviction and a lengthy prison term. Fear of retaliation often makes it difficult to find witnesses who will testify in gang cases, authorities say.

In the case of the Eight-Trey Gangster Crips, those fears appear well-founded.

Kim’s murder is one of seven blamed on the gang since the beginning of 1987, Los Angeles police said. In one particularly brutal crime last May, police said, gang members killed two teen-age girls who they mistakenly believed were relatives of a man who cheated them in a drug deal.

Still, Kim’s widow believes that Dent never should have had an opportunity to harm her husband. “He should have been in prison,” Don Kim said.

Just a week after he was paroled in April, Dent was standing in the street near his home when a man in a passing car fired several shots. Dent was hit three times, in the chest, right arm and stomach, and required major surgery.

Dent was on fairly good behavior after that, said Charles Trebbien, his parole agent since the latest release. Trebbien checked up on Dent during twice-monthly visits to the home on Halldale Avenue, east of Inglewood, that Dent shared with his mother and several siblings. The parole agent also supervised drug testing to which Dent was regularly subjected.

Dent’s record indicated that he was “potentially dangerous,” Trebbien said, but he did not commit any violations that required him to return to prison.

On the night of Aug. 19, Trebbien was at home watching a television reporter describe a shooting in front of a Lawndale bank. A Korean businessman had been murdered and robbed of $80,000, the newsman said.

Trebbien experienced the sinking feeling that sometimes comes over parole agents: “Oh God,” he thought. “This could have been one of my guys.”

The next day, he learned that Dent had been arrested.

Trebbien said he has been troubled by the case.

Even though Dent had committed no infractions that would have put him in custody, “a person in my position would like to do more to prevent innocent people from being harmed and killed,” Trebbien said. “I only wish that we were a little more effectual.

“I work long hours,” he said. “I try to do my best. But apparently sometimes it doesn’t prevent these people from going out and committing crimes.”