Gunman Who Killed Boy, 12, Gets Stiff Sentence

A man with ties to a violent gang was sentenced to 29 years plus a consecutive life term Friday for killing a 12-year-old boy and wounding a teen-ager when he sprayed a crowd with gunfire last year.

“These people were just standing there when you went in and just started blasting away; a 12-year-old boy doing nothing gets killed,” Superior Court Judge Ronald E. Owen told defendant Minh Chi Nguyen, 20, of Santa Ana.

Nguyen will not be eligible for his first parole hearing until he is 48. He had been on probation for burglary last Aug. 14, when the shooting took place in Santa Ana.

Minh Chi Nguyen and a companion, Thomas Trung Nguyen (no relation), 22, also of Santa Ana, were convicted in April of murder in the death of Pedro Hernandez, 12, and attempted murder in the shooting of Jose David Sanchez, 17. Pedro and Jose were among a crowd that had gathered that night in the 500 block of South Wood Street in Santa Ana.

According to evidence presented at their joint trial, the two had approached the group seeking to buy marijuana but were not successful. As they started to leave, someone threw a beer bottle, shattering the back glass of Thomas Trung Nguyen’s truck. The two then returned, and, witnesses said, Thomas Trung Nguyen handed a .45-caliber handgun to Minh Chi Nguyen, who shot into the crowd several times.

Pedro Hernandez was struck in the head and died instantly. Jose David Sanchez was wounded in the leg.

The judge previously sentenced Thomas Trung Nguyen to 25 years in prison and a consecutive life term. Deputy Dist. Atty. Lew Rosenblum said it was clear that the judge thought Minh Chi Nguyen deserved a stiffer sentence because it was he who had fired the weapon.

Rosenblum called the shooting “totally senseless.”

“The fellow who had thrown the bottle wasn’t even in the crowd when they came back; he’d already gone,” Rosenblum said after the sentencing hearing Friday.

Thomas Trung Nguyen’s defense during the trial had been that he did not know his partner was going to shoot into the gathering. But witnesses said they had heard him indicate to his partner to shoot. Minh Chi Nguyen’s attorney argued that the shooting occurred in the heat of passion and should therefore have resulted in a voluntary manslaughter conviction, but the jury also rejected that argument.

Although police and prosecutors did not see the incident as a gang-related shooting, a probation report indicates that police believe Minh Chi Nguyen has ties to a violent gang.

Owen sentenced Minh Chi Nguyen to 25 years to life, plus four years for use of a firearm. It was the attempted-murder conviction that permitted the judge to add a consecutive life term to the sentence. Thomas Trung Nguyen’s sentence does not include the four years for use of the firearm.

Rosenblum told the victims’ family members that it will be nearly 29 years before Minh Chi Nguyen can ever be released.

At the sentencing hearing Friday, Owen asked Minh Chi Nguyen whether he wanted to say anything; Nguyen, who was wearing a yellow Orange County Jail jumpsuit, declined.

The probation report indicates that Minh Chi Nguyen’s mother and five brothers and sisters are in Vietnam but that he has lost contact with them. When he and his father first came to the United States, they lived in New Mexico, then moved to Los Angeles County, then Orange County.

Minh Chi Nguyen declined to discuss the shooting with a probation officer, saying that he plans to appeal.

The probation report also quotes a Santa Ana police officer who was involved in the investigation as saying that Minh Chi Nguyen had told him that his intentions were to kill someone when he fired the shots that night.

The prosecutor credited the work of the Westminster Police Department officers who arrested the two defendants on the day of the shooting.

Witnesses at the scene had given police a partial license-plate number and a description of the truck. Westminster officers were aware of the Santa Ana shooting, and they spotted the truck with the broken back window.