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Anybody Could Have Made Slurs, Chief Says

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

Westminster’s police chief said Friday that the racist slurs made against Vietnamese protesters on a police radio frequency could have been made by anyone with $600 worth of equipment bought at Radio Shack.

“A member of any Orange County police department or fire agency directly or indirectly involved in this incident, or even a member of the public with access to a radio transmitter, could have used the inappropriate language over the police channel,” Chief James Cook said at a news conference outside the police station.

Police are investigating the slurs, which occurred as thousands of Vietnamese Americans gathered at a minimall in Little Saigon to protest a shopkeeper’s display of a Ho Chi Minh portrait and a communist flag.

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Cook provided little information about the slurs, saying state law prohibited him from releasing information about an internal department investigation.

He called the investigation “a monumental task. We have to interview virtually hundreds of people.” He declined to say how detectives would attempt to trace the voice.

Police Sgt. Al Panella said he thought the epithets were used Saturday night, but Cook would not confirm that date.

On Saturday night, 300 officers from law enforcement agencies throughout the county helped Westminster police control the crowd.

Police were using a radio channel known as Orange South to communicate with each other when the slurs were broadcast. Standard procedure is for an officer broadcasting on the channel to announce his or her badge number when starting the transmission. The person using the epithets did not use any identification, Panella said.

Rusty Kennedy, executive director of the Orange County Human Rights Commission, said an assistant sheriff described the language to him. It was “racist language directed at the demonstrators and suggesting violence be perpetrated upon them by the police,” said Kennedy, who called it a hate crime.

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Few people have heard the tapes of the transmission, and Westminster police will not release them, citing the investigation. Cook said he had not listened to the tapes.

He joined a previously scheduled lunch meeting between leaders of the Vietnamese American community and his department Friday to discuss communication in the continuing demonstrations in Little Saigon.

Van Thai Tran, an attorney who was at the meeting, said the description of the slurs police gave him showed a “clear and present danger, a definite threat.”

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Community organizers said they plan to hold off judgment of police until further investigation.

“The reaction from the Vietnamese community depends on how the Police Department is handling this matter,” said attorney Luan Tran, who represents the protesters.

“What kind of investigation are they going to conduct, and what action do they take after that investigation? That’s what we care about.”

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Kennedy said the chief told him that a law enforcement officer most likely used the offensive language.

The possibility of an officer tied to anti-Vietnamese statements comes as relations between police and protesters are somewhat strained, with some community activists saying police were too aggressive with the protesters last Saturday.

At his news conference, Cook strongly backed his officers, saying they had been pelted with bags of urine and other objects.

“I think the police have used great restraint,” he said.

Cook said the crowd included those “who are violent and trying to provoke police.”

Panella said the department plans to switch to a more modern communication system that would make it far more difficult for a civilian to crack. Federal Communications Commission regulations prohibit unauthorized broadcasts on police bands.

He said, however, that in 11 years as a police officer, he couldn’t recall anyone being caught in such an offense.

Times staff writer Tini Tran contributed to this report.

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