Opinion ID: 2827119
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: July 21, 1994, shooting of Tony Nguyen

Text: In the afternoon of July 21, 1994, Tony Nguyen was giving some members of the Cheap Boys gang a ride home. Vinh Kevin Lac was in the front passenger seat of the car Tony was driving. Tinh Dam and his girlfriend, Chynna Vu, were in the back seat. Vu was a member of the Southside Scissors, a female Asian street gang. Several more members of the Cheap Boys gang were following in another car. Tony stopped his car at a stop light on Garden Grove Boulevard, and another car stopped beside him to his left. He recognized the girl driving the car, later identified as My Tran, and saw a male, later identified as Nghia Phan, in the front passenger seat but could not see the people in the back because the windows ―were kind of cloudy or dirty.‖ Tony smiled at the girl driving the other car and then turned away because he ―didn‘t want to stare.‖ When the traffic signal turned green, he heard gunshots and ―fell to the seat.‖ Phan had fired four or five shots. Tony was shot in the neck and was paralyzed from the neck down. At the scene of the crime, Lac, who had been in the front passenger seat of Tony‘s car, told the police that he could not identify anyone in the other car, but he thought they were members of the Nip Family because they were ―enemies‖ of the Cheap Boys. A few days later, Lac realized that the male sitting in the back seat behind the shooter was defendant, who lived downstairs from him. Lac had 3 ―bumped into‖ defendant five or six times prior to the shooting. Some days after the shooting, defendant came to Lac‘s apartment and asked, ―What‘s up with the cops?‖ Lac assured defendant that he had said nothing to the police. At trial, Lac identified defendant in court as the person in the other car who sat in the back seat behind the shooter. Lac also testified that just prior to the incident, the shooter‘s car passed Tony‘s car, and as it did so, defendant stared back at the occupants of Tony‘s car. The shooter‘s car went into a restaurant parking lot, waited for Tony‘s car to pass, and then pulled out to meet it at the stop light on Garden Grove Boulevard.