Police Kill Man Holding Girl Hostage : Reseda: An eight-hour standoff ends when a SWAT team storms the apartment where the gunman was barricaded with his daughter.

A police SWAT team Tuesday killed a heavily armed Reseda man, described as tormented by family, drug and unemployment problems, in a gunfight that ended an eight-hour standoff in which he held his 3-year-old daughter hostage, firing at anyone who approached.

The girl was rescued unharmed.

At 2:05 p.m., Los Angeles police SWAT team members stormed the apartment in which Tan Khuat had barricaded himself with his daughter, because it was evident that the out-of-work sound engineer would carry out threats to kill the girl and himself, said Police Capt. Valentino Paniccia.

“He was highly volatile,” Paniccia said. “The more he talked with us, the more he threatened to kill the baby.”

Khuat, who spent the day drinking heavily and brandishing some of the six firearms he had with him, carried his daughter in his arms most of the day, even when venturing out of the apartment for cigarettes offered by police negotiators. Later, when the SWAT team burst into the apartment, he fired at them and ran into a bathroom with a .357 magnum pistol at his daughter’s temple, police said.

Fearing her life was at stake, at least one police sharpshooter fired, and Khuat was felled by a single bullet to the head, Officer Carlos Flores said.

The girl was plucked from the arms of her father, who died at the scene, by a SWAT team member who delivered the child to her mother outside.

Among those watching the drama from several surrounding streets were some of Khuat’s friends, and Harold Blaisch, his lawyer in a minor car collision case. Blaisch pleaded with police not to shoot. He and some of Khuat’s other friends said Khuat, a Vietnamese immigrant, was a good family man who simply snapped from the combined problems of losing his job and having to live out of his car after quarreling with his wife.

“He was extremely despondent and upset,” Blaisch said. “But I couldn’t conceive that he’d kill the girl. I think it’s outrageous.”

Police, however, said Khuat was threatening to kill anyone who came near him, and that he had fired at least eight shots, most of them from a window of the second-story apartment. Khuat also had called a receptionist in Blaisch’s office earlier in the day, while barricaded in the apartment, to seek help and guidance.

“He said he had shot at a police car . . . and that if he went outside he was facing 15 years in jail,” said the receptionist, Sylvia Freiburg. “He said if he was going down, he wanted to take five people with him.”

Because of his threats, police closed Sherman Way and other streets in a three-block area around the apartment complex in the 7100 block of Amigo Avenue shortly after 6 a.m., and evacuated nearby homes and apartment units. School continued at Reseda Baptist School half a block from Khuat’s apartment, but children were kept in a basement all day because of concern that Khuat had a telescope-sighted rifle.

“Thank God we contained him before anybody got shot,” Lt. George Ibarra said.

The incident began when Khuat, 32--who also went by the name Gene Morgan--went to the apartment of his estranged wife, identified by a friend as Hong Khuat, about 6 a.m. and they argued. The wife told police that Khuat threatened her, and that she grabbed her 6-year-old son and ran. Her sister went to the apartment a short time later to retrieve the pajama-clad daughter.

Ibarra said the sister also argued with Khuat, who fired several shots at her as she fled.

The gunman also fired at a police car and a television cameraman who arrived outside the apartment after the sister fled, Deputy Police Chief Mark A. Kroeker said.

Nobody was hit.

Police said Khuat had threatened to kill the apartment manager and telephoned threats to at least one television station, falsely claiming he had killed the apartment manager.

Authorities said Khuat had had several run-ins with the law, including a Sept. 23 incident in which he beat his wife after accusing her of being unfaithful when she came home from visiting a hospitalized relative. The wife had obtained a restraining order to keep Khuat away, and a hearing had been set, authorities said.

Marty Vranicar, head deputy city attorney in Van Nuys, said Khuat was arrested in April, 1991, on charges of trying to buy drugs from a police officer, and that he completed a diversion program for first-time offenders.

Hoa Tran, described by police as a relative, said Khuat had “lost control” of a cocaine habit.

Another longtime friend, Trang Vo, said he had known Khuat since the two escaped Vietnam 13 years ago in a refugee boat. Watching the ordeal from behind a police line, he said Khuat was a generous, kind, happy-go-lucky man who cherished his family.

But he too said Khuat had been using too much cocaine, harming his marriage and career.

“He was a good person, but he used cocaine too much,” Vo said, his eyes welling with tears, after police killed Khuat. “He was a good guy. He just had a problem.”

Times staff writer Aaron Curtiss contributed to this story.