The SAPD arrests another woman in the hate crime killing of Kim Pham

View Comments

• Wow! Great to the point article.

  • Thanks! I am having to spend a lot of time countering the spin coming from City Hall...

    • Way to promote more violence against Latinos by whipping up hatred and promoting stereotypes. The crowd at the Crosby is predominantly Asian, so the "over 50 people running around this town who apparently think it is OK to murder Asians" were other Asians! Vicious? Yes. Hate crime? No evidence to support that. If the victim had been Latino and the circumstances were the same, would it be a hate crime? No.

      And you say "The Vietnamese came here with nothing but they value education and work hard and don’t get bogged down believing they are victims. They get good jobs in engineering, medicine and technology." Way to promote Asian stereotypes! I've seen plenty of drunk Asian women downtown stumbling and even passed out on the ground in front of Proof. Students in their early 20's, just like Pham. Not model citizens, but rather fully assimilated drunk American college chicks. For the record, I don't see any drunk Latinos downtown. Maybe they can't afford the drinks. Maybe they have to work in the morning so they don't have the luxury to get blotto every weekend.

      And you basically say local working class Latinos, whose families also came here with nothing, are just "jealous people who often are complete losers." Seriously sick commentary. Irresponsible and mean. You actually crossed the line into hate speech with this post. Read the definition you posted. The shoe fits. Sad. Disappointing.

      I want to know what was said or done that night to provoke such a violent response. Still no evidence that this crime was motivated by race, gender or prejudice. It appears to be motivated by alcohol and seething class tensions engineered by Downtown Inc that are enabled by the ineffective "Clean and Safe" foxes watching the henhouse. The verdict is still out on this case, but it is in regarding your post. Hate speech!

      • I never said that about the families. I said that about the jerks that killed Pham. The families were chased out of Downtown Santa Ana by the gentrifiers awhile ago.

        And if Asians killed a Latina and called her a beaner in the process I would call that a hate crime too. But that is not what happened.

        This was clearly a hate crime and the fact that you and other gentrifiers are working overtime to avoid that tag tells me all I need to know. This vicious murder threatens to ruin all of the hipster bars and restaurants and that is what you really care about.

        • Your article is trash. Instead of presenting factual evidence you present a wholly subjective hate article. The L.A Times (credible cite) states that police and city leaders made a point Friday stressing that the death of Kim Pham is not considered a hate crime. Instead of focusing on ethnicity, lets shift our perspective to humanity. The perpretators who committed such crime are evil and malicious HUMANS who deserve to be imprisoned with similar humans; those who are incapable of living civilized and moral lives.
          Additionally, only the players that seek drugs and alcohol play on this "drunken playground." Substance use alters the mind, and frankly the perpetrators might have been under the influence, which caused them to act unjustifiably. Also, this might have been the reason why Kim's friends stood on the side. If hate was the reason, I'm sure this would have been a group brawl and not a one man fight.

        • Alcohol and drugs amplify who you already are. Pham's killers were already racists. Now they're murderers too.

        • You will find plenty of Mexicans in line at 7-11, cvs, rite aid waiting to purchase cheap booze. Always.

      • And you basically say local working class Latinos, whose families also came here with nothing, are just “jealous people who often are complete losers.”

        seems pretty true though.

        another mexican on asian crime
        http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2014/01/daniel_perez-munoz_phuong_huyn.php

        • No I didn't say yhat about families. I said that about the jerks that killed Pham.

          Most troublemakers in Santa Ana aren't immigrants. They are American born, like Michele Martinez. She was selling drugs when she was 17.

        • Jimmy Norton, thanks for proving my point that this post promotes hate against Latinos. Nowhere in ANY of the reports is there evidence that the Latinos uttered racial epithets against Asians. How do you know one of the Asians in the crowd didn't insult the Latina women for being Mexican or poor or gordita or wearing untrendy clothes even for just being a local? That some drunk Asian Crosbyite didn't push, hit or say something so offensive to a single mother that her friends went ballistic and Pham ended up paying the price?

          And if you think that Asians are model people not prone to violence, let me remind you of the Vietnam war, Cambodian genocide, China in the last 50 years, Japan in World War II. You want to talk about hate crimes against Asians, there's more historical record of Asian racism against other Asians, than Latinos against Asians.

          And you see, that's the horrible thing about hate speech, Editor, you may think you were blasting the "bad Mexicans" and not the "good Mexicans" such as yourself, but you opened the door for hatred that bashes all Mexicans. And finally, the accounts point out that it was 5 Latinos in a crowd of up to 50 mostly Asian drunk brawlers. Does that sound like a fair fight to you?

        • Quote from the OC Weekly story: "We do not have enough information to determine how that altercation started, or who said what," Rojas said."

          Please Stop the Hate!

        • Who cares what the temp police chief says? The gentrifiers are clearly pulling his strings.

      • dont the messyc*nts got problems with cartels?drugs?prostitution? gangs??? everyday i walk out and i see what was once beautiful los angeles turn into an infested wet burrito filled with greasy wetback illegal aliens.

        • messyc*nts used to be tribes of savages killing each other and sacrificing babies. good thing my spanish brothers came over "azteca" and re-educate you guys.

• U have to be f*cking kidding me if ur really gonna be pushing on this hate crime shit. Open ur f*cking eyes it was drunk people fighting that got out of hand and ended with a death. Thats it. Why dont you report on the murders that asain people have committed against latino people. Were those hate crimes also?

  • Your language speaks for itself. Were you laughing it up too while Pham was beat to death?

    And what Asian killings of Latinos are you referring to? The last Asian to get killed in our city was a homeless Vietnamese man shot by the SAPD. I don't recall any Latinos being kicked to death by Asians.

• Remember that 12 of those 50 watching were phams so called friends according to eye witnesses. Thats something to think about.

  • Yes you guys keep spinning that but they were probably scared out of their minds by the attack and the attack itself didn't last long. But I bet her friends weren't laughing and taking pictures! They were probably in shock.

• Trust me if you look for them in the oc register and you will come across them. They did after all happen within the last 4 years. So it hasnt been that long for you not to remember. You can do some hw to.

  • We post just about every press release from the SAPD and the OCDA. I have seen no killings of Latinos by Asians.

    • Oc weekly

• This article is trash, it is the one and only article that is pushing this unfortunate incident as being a hate crime. Why? The victim could have been anyone that day, but unfortunately it was Kim, a Vietnamese American. Let us not focus on ethnicity, but on humanity. The perpetrators are evil and malicious HUMANS; therefore, it is only right for them to be persecuted and locked away with those who are similar to them. Credible sources such as the L.A. Times state that police and city leaders made a point Friday of stressing that the death of Kim Pham is not considered a hate crime. A club is a place where drugs and alcohol are feasible therefore, only the players who seek to play in a "drunken playground" will attend such place. It is these that make a more probable cause than "hate."If this was instigated by hate why wern't Kim's friends attacked as well? Why wasn't it a group brawl?

  All credibility to this website has been lost. This article is not factual, but wholly subjective.

  • Even though one of the killers called Pham a gook? That is racist.

    Imagine if a gay man had been kicked to death in Downtown Santa Ana? The gentrifiers would be screaming that it was a hate crime.

    • is there a confirm on that? srs inquiry.

      • It's coming. That's why the police are dragging this out. They're going to try to make a case that it was just a disagreement.

• what the f*ck are these broke ass paisa ass cholos and cholas even doing at hipster bars...i dont think theirs lowrider shoes and daddy yankee performing there....

• There is truth to this article, there are a lot of hispanics who disrespect and despise asians a lot, i don't think its the majority, but it only takes 10% to matter and I feel it more than that. there are racial tensions undoubtedly. When I started a community center in Pomona for children, I didn't get a lot of respect at first, but I earned it spending time with kids from all different backgrounds in that area, mostly hispanic and black. part of the point was, it had to be earned. However, the kids didn't care what color I was, just that I had the time listen and spend with them. i married a latina and it was stressful for her being pressured to have more academic pursuits, from my family. I wasn't happy how things turned out either, and if I were mad at hispanics I'd realize I'm just trying to scapegoat my failures, when instead its probably more productive to learn from mistakes. And I adore my son, and he's half hispanic. Then I have my brother and he started a business with a hispanic partner about six years ago and now their business is extremely thriving in Santa Ana with about 70:30 ratio of hispanic to asian clientelle. I guess it just depends on the type of person you want to be. If you want to hate, its your right...maybe you have a handful of friends who will cheer you on...You can promote that hate and make it grow and surround yourself with it...If that's what you choose, and then you can try to teach that to your children. How do you think that works out? That said, I tried to embrace diversity and tried really hard to overlook cultural and class tensions, but I felt it was difficult to overcome some of the cultural and class differences at least in a marriage. I think it takes a great deal of understanding, wisdom, and maturity, which I did not possess, and I'm not even sure most people possess, to make things like this work. My brother does it easily with his friend and business partner, and so does all the people he works with. I care about this matter but its not an easy situation. I don't think the solution is to be angry. I think catching these criminals, more police, better surveillance is what Santa Ana needs to bring Asians back. I'm an asian, and I think we're smaller and its intimidating being the smallest race in this country. PAside from any racism, i'd like more protection just in general. There were probably a bunch of asians just watching, they were probably afraid of dying. But then again some guy in my culture lit himself on fire to try to stop the war in Vietnam. Amazingly, a white dude in America was so impressed he did himself in front of the Pentagon to send a message in America as well.

• You guys are a bunch of f@cking idiots. All crimes are hate crimes. I know what the author is up to when he wrote this article. Are a majority of Latinos more violent than Asians? Yes. Are a majority of Asians smarter than Latinos? Yes. Do people do crazy things when they are drunk? Absolutely. Did the Latinos beat up an Asian girl because she was an idiot smack talker? Hell ya. Was the killing a hate crime? No, it was a bunch of drunken dumbasses that got violent. Violence doesn't care if you're black, white, Asian, or etc.

  Now my biggest question is who watched the 10 kids that the Latinas had while they were out getting wasted?

• Trash article. U should b ashamed of yourself. Drunk human beings murdered another human being in a drunken rage. Your writing does nothing positive for the situation except try to form some sorta line in the sand between races. Junk, trash writing I cannot express that enough.

  • Thsy literally k8cked a young lady to death. That is not just alcohol at work. That is pure hate.

• Hard and hard not to consider this a hate crime. If the girl who photobombed this group of murderers were also Hispanic would the outcome have been different? Absolutely.