The California Court of Appeal last Friday rejected an appeal by an alleged Viet member of the Van Nuys Asian Boyz in a murder case where the victim was an innocent bystander in an Asian gang shoot-out. Or rather, shoot-up.
The opinion (unpublished, which means it only applies to this case and will not set a precedent for other cases) can be found here for 60 days. After that, the court will take it off its web site.
The Bolsavik has copied the file, so after 60 days you gentle readers can get a copy here.
The Bolsavik encourages all you all to read this opinion. The factual recitation in the first 11 pages reflects that the involvement of Viet youths in gang activities is a lot more widespread than most in the community would wish.
The case is People v. Nguyen, Cal. Ct. App. Case No. B190455, and the defendant is one Dat Thanh Nguyen, an admitted member of the Van Nuys Asian Boyz.
Now, the gang named “Asian Boys” is very famous and membership has been estimated in the several hundreds. However, as police gang expert Kris Tu testified in the case (page 9), there are many gangs all named “Asian Boys” (or, in this case, “Asian Boyz”) and they are all separate gangs.
OK, here’s what happened the night in question.
Allegedly, two gang members drove a white Honda Accord to the Tapioca Express on Valley Boulevard in Alhambra. (BTW, that’s the original Tapioca Express.) It was at night, about 9pm to 9:30, on November 5, 2004.
The place was crowded. A bunch of people were standing around outside the TapEx. One of them was Edward Rerkphuritat, a member of the Chinatown Boys gang. Another was his friend Lucas Liu, a member of the Wah Ching gang. Yet another was Brian Chiang, a non-active member of Wah Ching.
So the white Honda Accord came up to the Tapioca Express and asked Rerkphuritat’s group, “Where you from?”
Today’s lesson on gang language:
* “Where you from” means “what gang you with”
* ”Hitting up” someone means asking where they’re from - trying to get them to say what gang they belong to
Now, the conversation went something like this - as reconstructed by the Bolsavik from the various witness accounts on pages 3-4 of the court’s opinion:
Honda Accord: Where you from?
Rerkphuritat: Chinatown Boys.
Honda Accord: We’re the Van Nuys Asian Boyz here.
Rerkphuritat: So wzup?
Honda Accord: Wzup? You have shit with us.
Rerkphuritat: I don’t give a fuck.
Honda Accord: Fuck you.
Bang bang bang.
Rekphuritat got shot in his hand and leg, Lucas in the stomach.
And an innocent bystander was killed.
Her friend testified that when she heard the Honda Accord asking the others where they’re from, she knew it’s trouble. So she pushed her friends inside, but while they were trying to enter the Tapioca Express, Jasmine Ling was shot in the head and fell, mortally wounded.
The Honda Accord took off, but a witness who drove by saw the whole thing and took down the Accord’s license plate number.
That license plate was traced to Dat Nguyen’s girlfriend Hung Liu. Allegedly, that night, Dat Nguyen came home and asked her to tell the police the car had been stolen. A month before Dat’s trial, the girlfriend had to plead guilty to making a false statement to the police.
Dat was convicted and sentenced to 100 years to life in prision, plus two consecutive life terms with possibility of parole.
The appeal involves certain technical issues about the scope of defendant cross-examination, and the scope of pretrial discovery disclosure duties by the prosecutor. Long and short of it is, the appellate court rejected Dat Nguyen’s claim.
But here’s an interesting detail:
When cops came to arrest Dat Nguyen, he said, “You got me.”
OK, Asians are supposed to be smart. The Bolsavik, for example, is Asian and he’s smart. But this guy, geez, let’s just say he’s not the Bolsavik! EVERYBODY KNOWS that when cops arrest you, you shut the f**k up!
