Ordeal Spurs Criticism of L.A. Police

On the third day of Christmas, Dong-Sik) Chong, 81, stepped outside his family home in Koreatown for his daily walk.

“Don’t go too far, Father,” his daughter, Yong-Sook Becher, cautioned him. The old man and his wife had just moved in with his daughter’s family in their new home.

When Chong, who is hard of hearing and doesn’t speak English, didn’t return home at the usual time, family members scoured the neighborhood and filed a missing-person report.

Chong, tired and confused, had gone to a house that looked like his and banged on the side gate, repeatedly calling out in Korean, “Open the door!”

Before he knew it, he saw a helicopter overhead and two police officers at his side. The confused and terrified man was spread-eagled and searched, handcuffed and taken to a police station, he told his family.

The handcuffs were removed later at the station, but no one spoke to him, he said. He was nodding off in his chair, several hours later, he said, when he was awakened by the tapping of his foot by a female officer, who pointed to the door.

It was around 3 a.m. when he walked out, he said. While trying to find his way home again, he was beaten and robbed. He had $70 in his wallet.

What happened next, Chong doesn’t remember. But he landed in the emergency room at Good Samaritan Hospital with gashes that required 10 stitches on his forehead and bruises on the cheek and eyes. A Korean-speaking nurse and a social worker, who had heard the report about the missing man on the radio, called the station, which got in touch with the Bechers.

On Tuesday, Chong’s family, accompanied by representatives of a multiethnic coalition of Southern California-based community groups, went to the city Police Commission and demanded a full explanation.

Police Chief Willie L. Williams said a preliminary report indicates that Chong was picked up by the Northeast Division and forwarded to the Weingart Center because he was thought to be intoxicated. Weingart, located downtown, is a nonprofit agency that provides housing, health and social services to the homeless.

The chief, explaining that many questions remain, said he has assigned the LAPD’s Internal Affairs office to investigate the case.

“Could this have happened had he been white?” asked Randolph Becher, Chong’s son-in-law, who is white. “I can’t for the life of me understand why they didn’t try to find out who he is. I hope I’m wrong, but I think they didn’t think anybody would know the difference because he is an old Asian man who didn’t speak the language.”

“In a city with so many Koreans, how can it be that they didn’t even try to find out why an old man was wandering around alone at night?” asked a tearful Yong-Sook Becher.

Had they done so, she said, the police would have learned that the family was looking for him.

For more than a month since the incident, family members had tried to find out what really happened, but to no avail, Becher said. Tuesday was the first time he received any information from the Police Department, he said.

“In a city where 500,000 people do not speak English, the Police Department has the responsibility to be culturally sensitive to the needs of its diverse population,” said Luke Williams, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

“They just didn’t care,” said attorney Rey) M. Rodriguez, board president of Project Pastoral.

“Why are we paying for AT&T;’s 24-hour emergency language service if they don’t use it?” asked Marcia Choo of the Asian Pacific American Dispute Resolution Center.

Later Tuesday, family members met privately with Lt. Richard Smith, who is in charge of the probe.

“It’s obvious someone made a serious mistake, but they [LAPD] are yet to release a report,” said Robin Toma, chairman of the Asian Pacific Islander Advisory Council to the Police Department.

In a Jan. 17 letter to Williams and Deirdre Hill, president of the Police Commission, Toma said the incident “raises serious concerns” about the LAPD’s policies and practices egarding non-English-speaking newcomers to the city.

The letter, which was signed by leaders of 12 organizations, including the Asian Pacific American Legal Center and Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates, asked Williams and Hill to immediately provide all public records of Chong’s detention by the LAPD.

All urged the Police Commission to issue a written report on its policies for handling cases involving non-English-speaking people.

The incident has so traumatized Chong that he won’t leave the house. “My husband was such a healthy man--having been a farmer all his life,” said his wife, Kwan-Pun, 74. “Now he just sits on the sofa and says nothing. He sleeps all the time. . . . They made a cripple out of a healthy man.”