Crowd Again Thwarts Little Saigon Merchant

Truong Van Tran, whose insistence on hanging a Communist flag in his Westminster business has inflamed Orange County’s Vietnamese community, was pelted in the face with an egg and spat upon by demonstrators as he tried to reopen his video store Monday.

Westminster police dragged him into a squad car to protect him from the mob, but the 37-year-old Vietnamese immigrant fought the officers every step of the way. Later, he vomited and was taken to a local hospital but was released late in the day.

The ugly scene Monday morning points out the difficulty for authorities in managing a volatile standoff that has dragged on for more than a month.

The latest confrontation unfolded after Tran notified police shortly before 9 a.m. that he intended to reopen his Hi Tek TV and VCR video store. With only a half-hour’s notice, Lt. Bill Lewis said, police told him that they could provide only minimal protection.

Tran went back to the store anyway.

Hoping to diffuse the crowd’s reaction, police let protest organizers know that Tran was on his way. Lewis said officers hoped that with some warning the crowd would remain orderly and controlled.

But Tran’s appearance at the strip mall, where his video store has been closed for more than five weeks, was greeted with anything but calm.

The group of 80 to 100 protesters screamed as Tran arrived in a private car and headed for the store’s entrance.

He never got there.

Pinned against the display window, with angry protesters jabbing flags of the former South Vietnam in his direction, Tran was hit squarely in the face with an egg.

“We were very upset to see that,” said Ky Ngo, one of the leaders of the protest. “We told people to be calm and protest peacefully.”

As the crowd pushed toward him, a group of peaceful demonstrators moved to surround the slight man and help him back out of the mob. Even then, Tran struggled with police officers trying to remove him from the scene and ended up in the back of a squad car still kicking and trying to get away.

Tran, who vomited and complained of an increased heart rate while under police protection, was taken to Huntington Beach Hospital, where he was treated and released.

Westminster police said they are doing the best they can with the resources they have. The city already has spent more than $100,000 in overtime costs to deal with the protest crowds that have grown as large as 15,000.

“We can’t staff 200 officers every day with the possibility that Mr. Tran might call us and tell us that he is coming in 30 minutes,” Lewis said. “The best we can do is to react to the situation with the amount of time that we have.”

According to a statement by Westminster Police Chief James Cook, Tran’s attorney, Ron Talmo, questioned officers’ actions, asking why they had removed Tran from the scene rather than disperse the crowd.

Cook reaffirmed his department’s commitment to protecting the rights of all citizens, including Tran. But he said resources were finite.

“If we are needed, we will be there for him,” Cook said. “But he has to take some responsibility for his own safety and use good judgment too.”

Tran’s attorneys are trying to prevent his eviction, which the mall owner has been trying to accomplish since January.

With a deadline to respond to the eviction notice, Tran’s attorneys said they filed a motion in Orange County Superior Court on Monday asking that the order be rescinded because they say Tran never signed the lease agreement in question. Attorneys for the mall owner, Terra-Bushard Ltd., say Tran owes thousands of dollars in back rent.

At the video store, where a corps of protesters has maintained a nearly constant vigil, organizers talked of plans for the coming weeks and months.

Organizer Tuan Ho said his group plans to invite Vietnamese from around the country and the world to Westminster later this month for a conference on alleged efforts by Vietnamese Communists to infiltrate expatriate communities.

In May the group plans a cross-country trip to Washington, D.C., to bring awareness to ongoing human rights violations in Vietnam.

* LEADERS’ FORECAST: Rights campaign seen growing out of demonstrations. B8