Victim’s Family Believes Pummeling Was Racially Motivated

Angry and grieved, family members struggled Monday to come to terms with what had happened to Loc Minh Truong in their adopted homeland.

“I know we live in a country where violence happens every day, people get beat up all the time,” said Quat Truong, 35, the victim’s nephew. “Still, you cannot believe how shocked I am that this happened to Loc.”

Loc Minh Truong’s older sister, Ly Truong, had visited him at Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo Monday morning. “She told (us) he moved a little, but he couldn’t talk,” Quat Truong said. “He didn’t even open his eyes. He only moved his feet. She said she almost didn’t recognize him.”

The 55-year-old victim who was beaten Saturday beyond recognition in Laguna Beach had his condition upgraded Monday from critical to serious. Nurses said he had “begun to wake up” and move and talk, after being unconscious for two days.

The family said the victim, who they call “Uncle Loc,” is not gay. He has a wife and 18-year-old daughter living in Vietnam.

“I don’t think my uncle is gay, but even if he is, no one in his right mind could do to him what those kids did,” Quat Truong said. “Everyone is using the fact that he was in Laguna Beach at the time to accuse him of being gay. I think it had to do with his being Asian. I think they saw that he was different, not because they thought he was gay, but because they saw that he was not white.”

Loc arrived in the United States by boat in 1979. Edit Truong, Quat’s wife, said Loc comes from a family of 12 scattered around the world, with brothers and sisters in France, New Orleans, Missouri and elsewhere. Family members said he spoke English poorly.

Until being laid off last year, he had been working as an electronics assembler in Tustin and living with his sister in Costa Mesa.

Loc was forced to move in with a male Vietnamese friend in Costa Mesa while his sister moved into Quat Truong’s Garden Grove home. The two men are lifelong friends from Vietnam and people often mistake them for lovers, said Edit Truong, Quat’s wife.

“A lot of time American people think they are gay because they like each other and are affectionate and love each other, but that doesn’t mean they are gay,” she said. “They help each other out financially, split the cost of living. But even if he was gay, that doesn’t mean he was a horrible person and that’s no reason to beat him up and almost kill him.”

Both family members say their relatives are both hurt and outraged over what happened to their uncle. She said the men who beat him up did so out of blind hatred and because he was Asian, timid and unable to speak English to protect himself.

“The man who did this made a mistake,” Edit Truong said. “I hope he doesn’t experience what prejudice is.”