Fullerton Police Prepare to Bring Slaying Suspect to O.C.

Hung “Henry” Thanh Mai, the 25-year-old Orange County man accused of shooting a rookie CHP officer, remained in jail here Thursday as Fullerton police prepared to return him to Southern California.

Mai was scheduled to meet with Orange County Deputy Public Defender Linda Van Winkle, who flew to Houston on Thursday to advise Mai of his legal rights.

Law enforcement officials said Mai, who waived his right to fight his extradition to California, could be returned to Orange County this week.

“He will be coming back to California within 14 days,” said Fullerton Police Sgt. David Stanko.

He said the two Fullerton officers now in Houston would likely return with Mai on a commercial airliner, a chartered plane or some kind of ground transportation.

Mai, a suspected gang member, was arrested early Wednesday in Houston on suspicion of gunning down 25-year-old CHP Officer Don Burt. The rookie officer was shot seven times following a routine traffic stop in Fullerton on Saturday night. He left behind a wife who is seven months pregnant.

Officials with the California Department of Corrections said Thursday that federal immigration officials had expressed an interest in reviewing Mai’s legal residency when he was jailed in 1993 on a firearms conviction. Mai is a native of Vietnam.

Christine May, a corrections spokeswoman, said that officials with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service ended up not reviewing Mai’s case. INS officials sometimes place a “hold” on criminal convicts whom they may want to deport later on.

“They never followed up,” May said.

INS officials would not comment on Mai, a legal U.S. resident, citing privacy laws. But they said it would have been highly unlikely that the U.S. would ever have deported Mai, since the U.S. has no repatriation agreement with the government of Vietnam, and did not have diplomatic relations at the time Mai was in prison.

Mai was paroled in July 1993, May said.

In Houston, reaction to Mai’s arrest in the city’s large Vietnamese population was subdued. Only a few listeners called into the local Vietnamese-language radio station, Little Saigon Radio. Three of the listeners called to say they knew Mai and that he was in a gang, but they did not elaborate.

Houston ranks second behind Orange County in Vietnamese population with a community of 120,000 residents, local activists said.

“Almost all who expressed an opinion, they said that this shooting is a terrible, terrible reflection against the community, if it is true,” said station manager Phillip Phu Nguyen.

Mai was arrested two days after police released another man detained after the shooting.

Fullerton Police Chief Patrick E. McKinley apologized Thursday to a group of Korean Americans for the mistaken arrest of Young Ho Choi, a 32-year-old Buena Park man who was taken into custody shortly after Burt’s shooting.

Choi alleged he was harassed by officers and denied access to the bathroom and telephone.

“We are very, very sorry that Mr. Choi was put into this terrible predicament,” McKinley told a group of about 25 people. “We want to apologize to the Korean community and Mr. Choi for any inconvenience he may have suffered and any disparagement to the Korean American community.”

Choi, who attended the meeting, shook McKinley’s hand as the meeting began.

Also contributing to this report was Times correspondent Mimi Ko Cruz.