Southland Cambodians Wonder if Ngor Was Assassinated

Many Cambodians in Southern California debated Tuesday why Academy Award-winning actor Haing S. Ngor was shot to death, but some wondered if assassination was the motive because he had tried to bring perpetrators of the Cambodian holocaust to trial before an international tribunal.

“We cannot rule out a political motive,” said Borann Duong, editor of Cam News, a Cambodian-language newspaper in Long Beach. “He made a speech on Cambodian television last year criticizing the Khmer Rouge very strongly.”

But Dith Pran, the Cambodian journalist portrayed by Ngor in the 1984 movie “The Killing Fields,” said it is difficult to believe that the murder had to do with politics because it happened in Los Angeles.

“Like everyone else I am waiting to hear what really happened,” said Pran, a photographer at the New York Times. “I don’t think Khmer Rouge [agents would] have done this outside [Cambodia].”

Los Angeles police continued Tuesday to investigate the death of the 55-year-old physician-turned-actor, who was shot about 8:30 p.m. Sunday as he got out of his car in the carport of his two-bedroom apartment in the 900 block of North Beaudry Avenue near Dodger Stadium.

Despite all the speculation among Cambodians, police said they were not sure why Ngor was killed. But Ngor’s neighbors have said he probably was robbed.

In the past several years, Ngor had spent most of his time in Cambodia, where he established a school and had business interests, friends and associates said.

Ngor spent most of Sunday with a friend, Thommy Nou, and his family.

“We had breakfast, lunch and dinner together. Ngor doesn’t drink beer, but on this night, he had a Budweiser and we toasted,” Nou said, explaining that Ngor had been scheduled to leave for Cambodia on March 4.

As usual, Ngor advised Nou’s 14-year-old son, Richardy, to apply himself in his studies and to excel, Nou said.

Since the news of Ngor’s death, many Cambodians have inundated two Cambodian community service organizations in Long Beach with calls. The callers wanted to know if Ngor was the victim of a political assassination or merely fell prey to street crime.

“My phone has been ringing nonstop since Monday,” said Sovann Tith, executive director of the Long Beach-based United Cambodian Community. He said many Cambodians have walked into his newspaper office to ask questions.

Ngor’s death has added to the uneasiness of the local Cambodian community because it comes on the heels of four other slayings of Cambodians in the Los Angeles area in the past four months, Duong said. The others were killed during robberies, he said.

Dith said that since he got to know Ngor in 1984, the two have traveled to many cities to publicize the crimes of former Cambodian dictator Pol Pot and the perpetrators of massacres in Cambodia.

In Long Beach, home to about 50,000 Cambodians, a memorial service will run from Thursday to March 9 at the United Cambodian Community office at 2338 E. Anaheim St., Suite 200.