Slaying Shocks, Bewilders Asian Community in O.C. : Reaction: Some rethink assumption that good grades equal good morals as they try to sort out tragic events.

Kirn Young Kim’s mother called Andrew Ahn, editor of the Korea Times, on Tuesday afternoon. Her son, an honors student at Sunny Hills High School, had been arrested on suspicion of murdering Stuart Tay.

“She started to cry,” Ahn said. “She asked me to help. ‘What can we do?’ she said.” The woman was in a state of shock.

Orange County’s Korean-American community, estimated at nearly 60,000, is in shock as well. Three boys from immigrant Korean families were charged this week with Tay’s murder. Like their victim, all three excelled in school and belonged to quintessential community organizations. They seemed like children that would make any parent proud.

All three have pleaded innocent, yet police say the youths have given statements that implicate them in the gruesome killing.

But their arrest alone confronted parents everywhere with the stark fact that high academic achievements don’t always assure good citizenship. Some say they are re-examining the traditional Asian emphasis on lofty scholastic achievement. At Sunny Hills High, officials are organizing a meeting for parents and students next week to try to sort out the tragic events. A Korean community association plans a similar seminar next week.

The shock is exacerbated in the Asian-American community. While suspects Kim, 16, Charles Choe, 17, and Mun Bong Kang, 17, are children of Korean-American immigrants, Tay was Chinese-American, as was suspect Robert Chan, 18.

One Chinese-American wonders how much sacrifice is enough to raise good children.

“It’s caused me to question a lot of things now,” she said, speaking only on the condition that she not be identified. Making sure your children get a good eduction and providing for them may not be enough, she added.

Another parent, William Yueh, whose children graduated from Sunny Hills, added: “We’re scared. We are puzzled by this. . . . I hope this is an isolated case. We hope to find out what’s causing this, what caused the kids to do this.”

Orange County’s large Vietnamese-American community is worried as well.

“Parents used to think that if their children do well in school, then they have good moral characters as well,” said Yen Do, editor of Westminster’s Nguoi Viet Daily News, the nation’s largest Vietnamese-language publication.

Still, the Vietnamese-Americans downplay the murder for fear that talk about it would bring bad luck to the lunar new year later this month.

On the other hand, the murder is the topic of conversation everywhere in the Korean-American community. Its details are recounted in the county’s two Los Angeles-based Korean dailies, as well as Korean radio and television stations.

Community leaders are calling it the worst crime ever in the more than 20-year history of Korean-Americans in Orange County. They also emphasize over and over that the case is a reflection of today’s society, and shouldn’t be characterized as a Korean crime, or an Asian one.

“It implicates larger social ills that we are facing right now,” said Angela Oh, a Korean-American attorney who’s active in Los Angeles’ Koreatown and is defending Choe. “How is it that it got to this point where lives can be lost so easily?”

Garden Grove Councilman Ho Chung, a Korean-American, added: “This is not an Asian case. This is a national case. . . . We’re living in a troubled time.”

Jonathan Heo, a staff writer for the Korea Central Daily, a Korean-language newspaper, said the community normally loses face when one of its members commits a crime. “One of the reactions is a feeling of shame,” Heo said. “But in this case, they are too shocked. . . . They don’t know how to react right now.”

The Orange County Korean-American Assn. has tentatively planned a seminar for Thursday to talk to parents about the case. Many distraught parents have been calling, said association vice president Wendy Yoo, seeking an explanation and wondering about their role.

The school district will also hold a parents’ meeting on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at Sunny Hills.

“It’s for parents and for interested community members to let them know what’s going on and what has happened,” said Shirley Finton, assistant to the superintendent. “We will provide information about the incident and about the school and about the support services (for students). They are concerned.”

She said many students have been receiving counseling services this week.

For the parents of the suspects, the ordeal has been a “nightmare,” said Mark E. Beck, an attorney who also is representing Choe. “This was coming out of left field.”

There is also a ripple effect throughout their close-knit community.

“In Korean culture, once your kids do something wrong, it jeopardizes the parents’ status too,” Heo said.

But community members say it’s hard to fault the parents in this case.

Kim’s parents are well known to other Korean-Americans in Orange County. The father is a physician. The mother used to work outside the home, but she has been staying home since Kim entered junior high school to take better care of her son, said Heo, a family acquaintance.

Despite resigning from some of her activities a few years ago, Kim’s mother remains very active as a community volunteer. She works with Orange County Korean Family Counseling, helping teen-agers and Korean newcomers. She belongs to the Korean parent support group at Sunny Hills. She was honored last year by the Orange County Human Relations Commission for her volunteer efforts. The award was for her work to help bridge the gap between the growing number of Korean students and whites at Sunny Hills.

“She has a reputation for doing things well,” Heo said. “It’s kind of an obsession for her when it comes to doing things right. That’s the way she raised her kids.”

All three suspects come from immigrant families, but they seem to have adapted well to the Dobie Gillis aspects of America. Their parents are successful and attentive. They excel in school, take honors courses, attend church, perform community services, join groups like the Key Club, and are generally active in extracurricular activities.

Choe’s father owns an appliance store, while the mother works as a nurse, but has reduced her hours to spend more time with her son, Heo said.

As Heo tells it, Choe’s mother called the father at home on Tuesday, saying that Charles was in trouble with the police. The father told the mother not to worry. Hoe said the father thought it was nothing serious: “He probably played somewhere and broke somebody’s window or something.”

Times staff writers Catherine Gewertz, Gebe Martinez and correspondent Mimi Ko contributed to this report.