STANTON : Shooting Victim Was Expecting Assailants

The gunmen who shot and killed one man and seriously wounded two others at an apartment over the weekend apparently called the victims first to say they were coming, the wife of one of the victims said Monday.

Phuong Tran said her husband thought the men were coming over to make peace after a fight at the couple’s apartment the week before.

However, at about 11:30 p.m. Saturday, several men entered the Trans’ apartment and began shooting indiscriminately, killing Chien Kuan Nguyen 22, of Stanton and wounding Ba Va Tran, 20, of Westminster and Phuong Tran’s husband, Son Van Tran, 38. Both men were reported in critical condition Monday at UCI Medical Center in Orange.

Investigators refused to release any information about what may have provoked the shooting. The suspects remain at large.

But Phuong Tran, 25, said the suspects and the victims knew each other socially.

“One of the (suspects) had been over here the week before for a get-together with some others, something they do periodically,” she said Monday in Vietnamese. “They were just discussing about everything and nothing, and all of a sudden, he threw beer at people and on the table.” That triggered a fight, she said.

Every day after that, the beer-thrower and his friends had come by the Continental Apartments complex and threatened her husband, she said. On Saturday afternoon, she related, her husband told her that “these men were coming over, that everyone would probably make peace.”

Monday night, friends and family members gathered at the Tran apartment to comfort Phuong Tran.

The Trans migrated from Vietnam to Orange County in March and Son Tran was supposed to start his new job as a cook Monday morning, his wife said.

“I can’t believe something like this could happen to us,” she said. “We had looked forward to coming here to start a new life. I never thought this is what would be facing us.”