What followed is in dispute, and Dan's trial, just ended in Superior Court, left too many questions unanswered. It turned out his friend was no choir boy; he had left a gun in the car (with ammo in the trunk), and during a confrontation outside near Ralph's that Dan says was a "racial attack," gunshots were fired, and two of the apparent "attackers" were injured. The victims recovered fully and testified against Dan in the two-week long trial, which ended April 6 in Dan's conviction on three attempted murder charges with gang enhancement thrown in. After the verdict, I visited him in OC Jail; he had shaved his hair; the prosecution had claimed he had red hair (gang colors!) when in fact everyone in court could see the streak in his hair was yellow. In jail, he told me he wants to clear his name.
The irony is that Dan did not shoot anyone, and as he told KUCI's Subversity listeners April 3 in a taped interview from jail, he had never handled a gun before the incident. In fact, he supports gun control. The friend, whose gun it was, was actually the shooter who fired off nine rounds. But Dan had grabbed the gun he claimed he did not know was in the car, after a passenger from another car had slugged his friend in the nose, and someone had yelled out "Goddamn Nips." He thought they were going to "rape my girlfriend." Dan had pointed a gun at one of the drivers, in self defense to "scare him" he said, and was tackled to the ground, and the gun was knocked out of his hand. For that act, the jury found Dan not guilty of attempted murder but of assault with a deadly weapon. A bystander testified for the defense that one shooting victim, Daniel Vartanian, actually had an 11-inch knife in a sheath strapped to his upper right thigh. The witness said he saw Vartanian take it off and ask someone to "get rid of it" before police arrived.
Hoang was found guilty of three other counts of attempted murder. The California Street Terrorism Act is draconian: A minimum 15 year state prison term without parole for anyone, such as Dan, convicted of a violent crime, when he is also convicted of gang enhancement. The gang Dan is supposed to be associated with, or a member of, is the Alpha Kappa Piru, founded at Tustin High in 1992, according to a gang expert who testified. When prosecutor Robin Park first told me about AKP, I thought it was a fraternity. I'm sure Dan thought the same. Turns out his friend was an AKP member, and but was trying to get out, according to Dan. Both of his Campus Village roommates have told me Dan is not a gang member and they are shocked at the severity of the sentence Dan faces.
Prosecutor Park was unrelenting in painting Dan as a member of a model minority who valued education. She depicted Dan as a UCI student "intelligent enough" to know what was going to happen when he drove a car with a gun inside. In fact, Park alluded to all the Asians who win honors at graduation, and the gang expert testified that AKP had college educated members such as Dan. Park even compared Dan with Al Capone, saying that it was the "smarter" ones who are the gang leaders: Capone "was a very intelligent man" the prosecutor reminded jurors. Don't let Dan "get away with it" just because he is a UCI student, Park implored.
Park is the same prosecutor who led the case against Tu Anh Tran, the Rancho Santiago College student who was shot in the back and then charged with his friend's murder, even though he didn't shoot anyone. Tran managed to escape a prison term when he copped a plea for manslaughter. The actual shooter had claimed self defense for shooting Tran in the back and killing his friend. In Dan's case, Park, however,argued that it's not self defense to shoot someone in the back. Actually Dan didn't shoot anyone, but that doesn't matter according to Park: he initiated sequence of events that led to the shootings, by driving the "gang members" to the shopping center. Park also tried to challenge my press credentials (I was covering portions of the trial for KUCI and AsianWeek). The judge didn't agree with her and allowed me, after I explained what KUCI was, to continue to audiotape the proceedings. If I'd been kicked out, no one would have covered the case; I was the only reporter there.
The prosecution theory that Dan and his friends were out to gangbang that evening is fantastical. Why are Asians and other people of color automatically considered gang members when a gun is found in the car, but whites are not? For whites, but not for people of color, a gun is for self defense.
Dan's brother is a UCI graduate and was back in town for spring break from Boston where he attends Tufts Medical School. A sister, who also graduated from UCI, attends Harvard Dental School. Dat Hoang, the brother, 24, told KUCI listeners April 10 on my Subversity interview program that the prosecution painted a picture of Dan that was not the brother he knew: "This is really ridiculous, all these false accusations."
A younger brother, John, 17, still at Katella High in Anaheim, from which Dan had graduated with honors, told KUCI listeners that photos police seized from his home that showed him, Dan, and a cousin garbed in red bandana and flashing "hang loose" hand signs were taken at an aunt's birthday party, and did not depict anything "gang-related." Deputy District Attorney Park told jurors after the defense had rested (and could not rebut what she said), that the photos depicted Dan and other gang members "memorializing" their gang affiliation. Park had successfully prevented defense counsel Nolan Stringfield from introducing the rest of the photos, as well as the strips of negatives from the same roll of film, to show the innocuous nature of the photos. Now, are we to presume every Asian student at UCI with a red bandana is a Bloods gang member? As is an Asian who flashes a "hang loose" sign?
Asian and other people of color at UCI: This could well happen to you! Asians maybe over 50% of the undergraduate student body here, but outside campus in the town of Irvine, they treat us like the enemy. Instead of VC, we're gangbangers.
Another UCI student, a Japanese American senior, told me that he had been detained for hours by Irvine's finest when he went to a local high school to pick up someone after school. The Irvine police officers who confronted him accused him of being a gangster, and took his photo for the gang mugbook.
Yet another Asian, a UCI alumnus, has complained to AWARE, the group I co-founded, that after Irvine police beat him up, they told him: "All you UCI students are gangbangers!"
What's going on here? Is Irvine so afraid of crime and gangs that we run roughshod over civil liberties and common sense? But you can do something. We are trying to help Dan get leniency and justice when he is sentenced May 26. Dat, John and myself are hoping those of you who know Dan will write letters seeking leniency in his case. Does he deserve 15 years in state prison without parole? How is that going to cut down crime? You can also help circulate a petition asking for leniency from Judge Daniel J. Didier of Superior Court. To help, call (949) 597-9766. You can also write Dan Hoang, #1576935.... [He is now in state prison, at another location, after being sentenced to three concurrent 15-life terms. If you want to write him, let us know. Send us e-mail at: awaredt@hotmail.com.]
A shorter version of this essay first appeared in the New University at University of California, Irvine, April 17, 1995, pp. 1995, 16-17. An accompanying photograph of Dan Hoang had this caption: "This photo of Dan Trung Hoang, a UCI sophomore biology student, flashing a "hang-loose" sign and wearing a bandanna was used by the prosecution to prove that he was "memorializing" his gang affiliations. The student paper also ran a credit line as follows: Dan Tsang selects political science and economics books at the Main Library and hosts Subversity on KUCI, 88.9 FM, Mondays from 6-7 p.m. [Currently it airs Tuesdays from 5-6 p .m.]
For the Alternative Research Home Page, which lists Tsang's selected writings, click here: AR.