Ky Ngo - please come back - all is forgiven - well, almost
Thursday, April 10th, 2008It turns out that Ky Ngo, a prominent figure in the continuous, day-and-night, 24/7 protests against a Little Saigon-area newspaper, was not really under threat of arrest at all. (See previous entry here.)
He has been hard to find lately. Even reporters, to whom he is usually attracted like moths to a flame, couldn’t get hold of him.
Possible reason: According to his own lawyer Geoff Lyon, on Monday evening five police cars came out looking for him.
Since then, Ky Ngo hasn’t been at the protest site outside Nguoi Viet Daily news, hasn’t been showing up in court, wasn’t at the civil case filed by the paper, and wasn’t at his own arraignment on a misdemeanor zoning violation.
His trademark jacket melding the flag of the United States with that of the former Republic of Vietnam has not been seen.
His car, unmistakable with distinctive Vietnamese national colors of yellow with three red stripes, sat lonely in a parking lot across the alleyway from Nguoi Viet (photo).
Turns out, he shouldn’t have run.
The Bolsavik just got off the phone with Westminster Police Department’s Sgt. Ben Schoonmaker, who assured the Bolsavik that “We don’t have any outstanding warrant for his arrest. We just want to talk to him about some of the things we’re investigating.”
Too late! Ky Ngo already missed his court appearance (read the Bolsavik’s previous entry here). “Usually when defendants do not show up to court having signed a promise to appear, a bench warrant issues for FTA” (failure to appear), the prosecutor on the case, Deputy City Attorney Elena Gerli wrote the Bolsavik in an email.
So, there wasn’t any arrest warrant out before, but there may very well be one soon. Sgt. Schoonmaker said the police hasn’t seen any such warrant yet, though.
Should have just come to court when he’s supposed to.
Update: No warrant. The court’s calendar shows that Ky Ngo’s case has a new arraignment date of April 29. Gerli was offsite but explained to the Bolsavik: “Mr. Ngo probably came to court later yesterday afternoon or today and got his arraignment continued to the 29th. The bench warrant would not have issued yet, so the court simply set a new arraignment date.”
So, Ky Ngo, come out, come out, wherever you are. Cops just want to talk to you!

There is a deep feeling held by many Vietnamese-American, not just the right-wing extremists, that the current official red-and-star flag of Vietnam stands for the oppression that they and their parents and their parents before them suffered in Vietnam. (That is the mainstream Vietnamese opinion. The extremism comes in prohibiting anyone from raising a peep about the red flag, calling them a commie.)
Westminster City councilman Kermit Marsh (photo) is now running for a judgeship on the Orange County Superior Court to the office being vacated by the retiring Judge James Gray. (BTW, Judge Gray has a Vietnamese adopted son.) Opposing him is Deputy D.A. Mike Flory.