Born to Kill

by T. J. English

  Nearly two months had passed since Sen Van Ta had been robbed by the BTK, then threatened through the mail and in person by David Thai. It was four weeks since Ta walked into the Pho Hanoi luncheonette and identified the leader of the gangsters who had added insult to injury by trying to extort money. The pall that hovered over Ta and his wife since these events unfolded had only recently begun to lift. For the first time in many weeks, Ying Jing Gan saw an occasional smile come to her husband’s face. Now four months pregnant, she and Sen Van Ta had begun to make plans for the future. They discussed possible names for their child. They even talked about buying a nice middle-class house, maybe in Queens or out on Long Island.

  The fear that once consumed their lives may have receded, but it had not disappeared entirely. Criminal charges were being brought against the four gang members apprehended after the wild post-robbery car chase through the streets of Chinatown. No trial date had been set, but Ta and his wife knew that eventually the police and government prosecutors were going to be coming around again. This time, they would want Ta to take the stand in court and testify against the robbers. Neither Ta nor his wife was looking forward to that ordeal, which they had chosen to deal with by not thinking or talking about it.

  While Ta and Gan were helping close the Golden Trading Discount Store, two blocks south, at the corner of Broadway and Walker Street, a black sedan pulled over to the curb and stopped. The car was from a taxi service, the driver a Hispanic male. In the backseat were gang members Lan Ngoc Tran and Kenny Vu, both dressed entirely in black.

  They had arrived to do the bidding of Born to Kill.

  They had come to assassinate Sen Van Ta.

  In the weeks since the robbery at Sen Van Ta’s store had ended so disastrously for the BTK, high-ranking gang members had met numerous times to discuss what should be done about the store owner. David Thai was shocked when he learned that the robbery victim had picked the gang members out of a lineup. The BTK leader took this as a personal insult. Thai was even more incensed after he visited the store himself, and still his warning was ignored.

  Even though it was Sen Van Ta whom David Thai had spoken with that morning in front of the store, Anh hai could not be sure whether it was Ta or one of the store’s other managers or employees who was cooperating with the authorities. Later, when Sen Van Ta fingered LV Hong on Canal Street, Anh hai had actually been pleased. Now he knew for sure.

  “The first person who cooperate with police, this is the first person we kill,” David promised LV Hong, who was released on bail the day after his arrest.

  One week later, Thai and a handful of gang members met at a BTK safe house in suburban Long Island to discuss how they would handle Sen Van Ta. LV Hong was at the meeting, as were Lan Tran, Black Phu, Danny White Boy, Dung Steven, Hai, and Kenny Vu.

  “This store owner have to be taken out,” declared Anh hai. Turning to the gang member named Hai, he asked, “You think you can handle this job?”

  Before Hai even had a chance to answer, Uncle Lan spoke up. “I handle this job,” Lan volunteered. “This an important job, Anh hai. We don’t want any fuck-up.”

  Normally, David Thai liked to use newer gang members for jobs like this. It was a way for him to test a person’s loyalty, to give a young gang member a chance to prove himself. But no one was going to argue with Uncle Lan. If the gang’s premier killer wanted to be the one who murdered the store owner, then so be it.

  On the afternoon of March 10, Lan drove to one of the gang’s many safe-house apartments in Brooklyn, this one at 810 Forty-fifth Street in the Sunset Park section. Kenny Vu was living there with a handful of other gang members. “You come with me,” Lan told Kenny. “We go kill this store owner on Canal Street.”

  Lan did not want to drive into Chinatown in his own car, a beat-up, easily identifiable Datsun 280Z. Lan and Kenny tried to find a car they could use from among the two or three vehicles that circulated among the BTK’s Brooklyn crew, but no car was available. “No problem,” said Lan. “We call a taxi.”

  BTK gangsters commonly used car-service drivers as unwitting “wheel men” during crimes. To an outsider, the idea of relying on a complete stranger to unknowingly serve as an accomplice during a major act of lawlessness might seem incredible, even bizarre. But since Chinatown gangsters rarely met resistance when preying on merchants, they could literally mosey away from a crime, secure in the knowledge that it wouldn’t even be reported. Moreover, if there did happen to be non-Asian witnesses to the crime, having a Caucasian, black, or Hispanic driver had its advantages. Who would suspect that an anonymous taxi driving through Chinatown with a non-Asian behind the wheel was, in fact, a BTK getaway car?

  Seated in the backseat of the taxi near the intersection of Broadway and Walker streets, Uncle Lan checked to make sure his gun was safely tucked inside his waist-length jacket. “You wait here five minutes,” Lan said to the driver. “We need you take us back to Brooklyn.”

  The driver shrugged. “Sure, man. It’s your money.”

  In Vietnamese, Lan told Kenny Vu to sit tight, adding, “This should not take too long.” Lan got out of the car and headed north on Broadway.

  At Golden Trading Discount, Ying Jing Gan was still standing on the sidewalk in front of the store, folding clothes and putting merchandise into boxes. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed somebody entering the store, but thought little of it.

  Inside, Sen Van Ta was standing near the cash register, wearing a waist-length charcoal coat and faded green khakis. A female employee was near the back; a few feet away, also standing near the register, was Ta’s twelve-year-old nephew, Vinh Tran.

  Young Vinh Tran was the only one who noticed what he thought was a customer come into the store. A Southeast Asian male dressed in black, the man had a face that looked strange to Tran. He had pockmarked skin, and he was smiling. Not a mirthful smile. More like a creepy, sinister grin, almost a grimace.

  Born to Kill gang members carry a coffin containing the body of Vinh Vu, better known as Amigo. Three days earlier, Amigo had been gunned down by rival gangsters on Canal Street.

  U.S ATTORNEY, EASTERN DISTRICT OF N.Y.

  BTK Leader David Thai stands beside Amigo’s grave at Rosedale Memorial Park Cemetery in Linden, New Jersey.

  U.S. ATTORNEY, EASTERN DISTRICT OF N.Y.

  Gang members parade a BTK banner on Mulberry Street during Amigo’s funeral procession. U.S ATTORNEY, EASTERN DISTRICT OF N.Y.

  David Thai (in foreground at left) and his gang brothers gather around Amigo’s grave just minutes before a fusillade of gunfire rang out, sending everyone scattering. U.S ATTORNEY, EASTERN DISTRICT OF N.Y.

  Tinh Ngo, as he looked at age thirteen, standing on the grounds of a refugee camp in Thailand. Tinh had arrived at the camp after a torturous journey on a boat similiar to the one pictured below, where fifty Vietnamese refugees are crowded onto a thirty-foot fishing vessel, part of a mass exodus in the years following the U.S. evacuation of Saigon.

  AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS

  Tho Hoang “David” Thai

  LV Hong

  Tommy Vu

  Hoang “Jungle Man” Ngo

  Lam Trang

  Eddie Tran

  Two Chinatown power brokers in a rare photo together. Eddie Chan (left) formerly president of the On Leong tong, now a fugitive from the law, and Benny Ong, adviser-for-life of the Hip Sing tong and believed by many to be the “Godfather” of Chinatown.

  CHINATOWN HISTORICAL MUSEUM

  A classic photo of an early Hip Sing convention

  CHINATOWN HISTORICAL MUSEUM

  An immigration card belonging to Kim Ngoh Yee, David Thai’s second wife, known to BTK gang members as Sophia

  Kenny Vu displays his tatoos for the benefit of the New York Police Department.

  Jewelry store owner Odum Lim, after a BTK robbery in Doraville, Georgia, went awry

  After the bungled robbery in Doraville, it took the robbers a while to realize that Nicky, (left) had accidenti
ally been left behind inside the store.

  Sen Van Ta and his Chinese wife, Ying Jing Gan, not long after they were reunited in New York City

  Sen Van Ta lies sprawled on the floor of a Chinatown store after beign executed by the Born to Kill gang

  The triggerman, Lan Ngoc Tran

  A surveillance photo of confidential informant Tinh Ngo (left) meeting on Canal Street with Lan Tran to discuss an upcoming robbery

  The team of lawmen that helped put away David Thai and other key BTK gang members. Above (left to right and below): Detective Bill Oldham, Special Agent Don Tisdale, Special Agent Dan Kumor and Assistant U.S. Attorney Alan Vinegrad

  ANTHONY LOEW

  Sen Van Ta bent down to put some merchandise away. As he began to straighten up, he turned his head slightly.

  Suddenly, the customer pulled out a gun. Young Vinh Tran’s eyes opened wide with astonishment as he watched the man put the gun to his uncle’s left temple and pull the trigger.

  The gunshot reverberated throughout the small clothing store. Sen Van Ta’s face contorted as the single bullet penetrated his skull, pierced through the left and right temporal lobes of his brain and exploded out the other side of his head, behind the right ear. Uncle Lan, the assassin, had turned and was out the door before the body even hit the ground.

  Standing outside the store, Ying Jing Gan heard a loud pop! that sounded like a firecracker. When she looked up, a man was hurrying out of the store. He was about five feet two, reedy thin, and Gan would later remember that he had a yellow streak through his otherwise jet-black hair. He turned to his left and quickly headed north on Broadway.

  Ying Jing Gan hurried into Golden Trading Discount just as her husband’s body was falling to the floor. She saw blood—more blood than she had ever seen in one place in her whole life—gushing from Ta’s head. Her young nephew, terrified, had ducked behind the cash register.

  Gan felt her entire chest contract violently, as if she herself had been shot through the heart. A sickening wave of nausea engulfed her entire being; her head throbbed and her hands began to flutter uncontrollably. “Noooooooooo!” she cried out, her anguished wail bouncing from ceiling to floor, wall to wall, and out into the street.

  Her legs ceased functioning; Gan fell to her knees and struggled to gather her husband in her arms. On the floor around Sen Van Ta’s limp body was an expanding pool of blood—blood the color of nuac mam, the dark, amber fish sauce used like soy as a flavoring for traditional Vietnamese foods. Gan wrapped her arms around her husband’s body and began to sob hysterically. The blood on her hands turned a deep, shiny black. She could feel the life seeping from her husband’s body.

  Two blocks away, on Walker Street, Kenny Vu was still sitting in the backseat of the taxi. He waited nervously. After nearly twenty minutes, Lan Tran had still not returned.

  Kenny heard police sirens approaching. He saw an ambulance tearing down Canal Street toward Broadway. Motherfuck! he mumbled to himself. Did Uncle Lan complete the job or had something bad happened to him? With police closing in from all directions, Kenny didn’t feel like waiting around to find out.

  “I think we go back to Brooklyn now,” he told the driver.

  An hour after Kenny got back, Lan Tran showed up at the safe house on Forty-fifth Street. “Man, where you go?” Kenny asked him.

  Uncle Lan shrugged. “After I do the job, I don’t want to cross Canal Street. So I go to Delancey Street and get rid of the gun.” From a pay phone, Lan Tran had then called David Thai to let him know that the problem with the store owner on Canal Street had been resolved—execution style.

  At the same time Uncle Lan was calling Anh hai, a small crowd of Chinatown residents and passersby gathered on the sidewalk in front of Golden Trading Discount. The familiar yellow crime-scene tape had been stretched across the front of the store. Twirling police and ambulance lights cast an eerie, flickering glow on the street and surrounding buildings.

  Inside, medics checked Sen Van Ta’s vital signs as Ying Jing Gan was led to the rear of the store, where she stood with Ta’s sister and nephew, and a few cops. Her face was streaked with tears, her clothing soaked with blood. She felt as if her baby were moving around inside her womb, and asked if someone could find her a chair.

  Around 7:20 P.M., fifteen minutes after the shooting occurred, one of the doctors approached to tell Gan what she already knew to be true.

  Her husband, Sen Van Ta, no longer existed in this world.

  A cold rain swept down on the streets of Chinatown, and it didn’t let up for days. The gutters backed up and the street corners began to look like small reservoirs, with puddles of dirty rainwater spraying the street peddlers whenever buses or trucks chugged by. Business dropped off. Darkness fell early. The entire community succumbed to a cloudy, bone-chilling melancholy.

  The weather was the least of it. The killing of Sen Van Ta had struck like a dagger rammed deep into the soul of Chinatown. Still, most of the community’s residents could not say they were surprised. This was the way the gangs operated. This was the way they had always operated.

  On top of everything else, Ta’s death reaffirmed an age-old truism in Chinatown: Never, under any circumstances, should an Oriental put his or her faith in the police.

  Most merchants and shop owners on Canal Street had been well aware of Ta’s dispute with the BTK, but not all were sympathetic. For years, they had studiously avoided confrontations with the gangs by paying whatever was demanded of them. Ta, they felt, was a hothead who had put all their lives in danger by incurring the gang’s wrath.

  Others secretly admired Ta for standing up to the dreaded BTK. But even these people had been skeptical that anything good could come of cooperating with low faan.

  The police simply did not understand the true nature of crime in Chinatown, they felt. Take extortion. If a local merchant reported an extortionate act to the police, the cops rarely took it seriously. To them, the amount of money involved—sometimes as little as ten or twenty dollars—was laughable. But merchants in Chinatown knew that the act of extortion was not just about money. Extortion was also about establishing territory, instilling fear, and negotiating the often tricky issue of face.

  Studies conducted by community groups showed that the overwhelming majority of merchants doing business in Chinatown—somewhere around ninety percent—paid some form of extortion. Cops in the local precinct sometimes pointed to this fact as an example of how merchants supported and even encouraged gang activity in their areas.

  The idea that the police or anyone else might draw a conclusion like this was, to the people of Chinatown, a good example of how non-Asians had come to be called low faan in the first place. Fact was, most merchants were not anxious to pay extortion. They paid because they felt they had no choice. They paid because they did not want to wind up like Sen Van Ta.

  Ying Jing Gan certainly felt that the extortion demands and other threats made against her husband were not taken seriously enough by the NYPD. The horror of holding a dying Sen Van Ta in her arms would never go away, though her feelings of shock eventually turned to anger. As far as she knew, the police had never offered to protect her husband, even though they were the ones who had coerced him into making the public identification of LV Hong, the new Canal Street dai low. In effect, with that identification Ta had signed his death warrant.

  With the help of a passionate young Chinatown attorney named Shiauh-Wei Lin, Ying Jing Gan filed a lawsuit against the NYPD claiming that her husband’s death was a direct result of negligence. In response, members of the NYPD claimed in sworn affidavits that they had offered Ta protection, and he turned them down. If so, that revealed an even more saddening fact about life in Chinatown.

  Sen Van Ta knew that if he had consented to police protection, he would have been further implicating himself as the person cooperating with the cops. He also knew that the police could not protect him all the time. The gang, on the other hand, was composed of people from the community who cou
ld monitor his whereabouts day and night, striking whenever the time was right. It could be a week from now, it could be a year from now.

  That was the reality of life in Chinatown: If Sen Van Ta had consented to police protection, he was submitting himself and his wife to a greater degree of danger than if he simply went without.

  To the handful of federal agents and cops who were in the process of inaugurating an investigation into the BTK, news of Sen Van Ta’s murder hit like a mean, well-placed kick in the groin. Immersed in the process of debriefing their C.I., they had been a few steps removed from Sen Van Ta and his predicament. Now, they were going to have to deal with the consequences of Ta’s murder. They were going to have to deal with the intractable fear it was sure to instill in the people of Chinatown—people whose cooperation these investigators were going to need if they hoped to build a case against the BTK.

  The best course of action, the agents and cops agreed, was to get Tinh Ngo back on the street as quickly as possible.

  On March 13, 1991, three days after Lan Tran silenced Sen Van Ta with a bullet through his brain, Tinh Ngo signed a four-page agreement with the King’s County District Attorney’s Office. He pleaded guilty to robbery charges, but it was unlikely he would serve time if all went well. His bail, which had been set at $5,000, was waived. In exchange, he agreed to solicit information on the criminal activities of the BTK, which he would then pass on to the authorities.

  That afternoon, Tinh was released from custody at the Brooklyn courthouse. Detectives Bill Oldham and Alex Sabo drove Tinh to a motel near La Guardia Airport, in Queens. Oldham handed Tinh $75 in spending money. “Remember what I told you,” he cautioned Tinh.