Westminster Police Arrest Man in Plot to Kill Officer
A man who was apparently so angry over traffic citations that he decided to kill the first Westminster police officer he saw has been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder after he tried to buy a gun from an undercover detective, police said Friday.
“We found several citations in his vehicle,” Sgt. Tom Blackburn, a spokesman for the Westminster Police Department, said regarding the Thursday night arrest of Khai Pham, 29, of Riverside. “He was pretty upset.”
Alerted to Pham’s intentions during the course of another investigation, Blackburn said, the undercover detective met with Pham in the parking lot of a shopping complex at Goldenwest Street and Westminster Boulevard about 8 p.m. Thursday.
In addition to attempting to buy the gun, he said, Pham tried to solicit the detective’s help in killing an officer.
“He’s a recent parolee who’d been issued the traffic citations over the last two to three weeks,” Blackburn said. “His desire was to kill a Westminster police officer.”
Pham was taken to Orange County Jail, where his bail was set at $1 million.
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