3 Brothers In Shootout Led Dual Lives

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - In retrospect, it seems the three Nguyen brothers led dual lives.

In keeping with Vietnamese tradition, they were well-behaved at home and bowed their heads to their parents, according to their father, Bim Khac Nguyen. Loi, 21, Pham, 19, and Long, 17, always listened to him, he says.

Away from home, however, some saw them as troubled young men. Immigrants from Vietnam, they had difficulty adapting to American society and all had problems in school. Long Nguyen, the youngest, was expelled in March with his friend, Cuong Tran, after they tried to set fire to their high school.

But no one expected their lives to erupt in the violence of April 4 when the Nguyen brothers and Tran seized a Good Guys electronics store near their Sacramento home, taking 41 hostages.

As sheriff's deputies stormed the store, at least two of the youths began shooting the hostages, killing two employees and a customer and wounding 11 people, authorities said.

Pham and Long Nguyen, along with their friend Tran, 17, died in shooting it out with deputies. Loi Nguyen, who was seriously wounded but survived, is charged with three counts of murder and 51 other felonies.

Their parents and others who knew the young gunmen are still groping to understand why they threw away their lives in such a desperate act.

"I wanted them to finish school, become successful and still keep the Vietnamese traditions," Nguyen said. "Now there are no

words left to say. I never envisioned something like this would happen."

Sacramento County Sheriff Glen Craig said the siege was motivated in part by the youths' frustration with their lives in America and the problems they faced seeking to adapt.

Craig said the youths were members of a violent, loose-knit Asian gang, the Oriental Boys. Apparently they were trying to make some sort of statement, not rob the store, he said.

During negotiations with sheriff's deputies, the youths demanded such things as tea made from 1,000-year-old ginger roots and a helicopter to fly them to Thailand to fight the "Viet Cong."

Others who know the youths are not so sure about the sheriff's explanation. Teachers and relatives, for example, say they knew of no gang activity by the Nguyens. However, leaders of the Vietnamese community and academic experts say the problem of acculturation can be especially acute for children whose parents - like the Nguyens - have not learned English or found jobs since arriving in this country.

The Nguyen family left Vietnam 12 years ago, believing their lives could not get worse. "My family and I would rather die at sea than to be under Communist rule," said Bim Nguyen, 54.

He, his wife and six children escaped with 51 other people cramped together in a small fishing boat. They spent seven months at sea and at anchor off the coast of Malaysia, where they repeatedly were raided by pirates. Hungry and penniless, they spent four more months in a refugee camp in Indonesia.

Since arriving in California in 1980, the Nguyens said, they have survived on welfare. In Sacramento, they live in a two-bedroom unit of a run-down apartment building half a mile from the Good Guys store. Before the shoot-out, two young daughters slept in one room with their parents, while four sons, Loi, Pham, Long and Phu, 15, shared the second bedroom.

Cuong Tran also was born in Vietnam. But unlike the Nguyens, his family was relatively affluent. His parents, Trong Van and Hoa Thi Tran, bought a house 15 months ago in a new middle-class neighborhood in nearby Elk Grove. Hoa Thi Tran helps operate a manicure shop.

Cuong Tran and Long Nguyen were classmates at Florin High School until they were expelled for stealing athletic equipment and trying to set fire to the school, said principal Bill Huyett.

The pair also had been arrested on a separate criminal offense and were due in juvenile court for a restitution hearing April 5, the day after the shootout. Authorities would not discuss the case.

None of the four youths was successful in school, a factor that likely contributed to their alienation, some former teachers and family friends said.

Loi Nguyen, the eldest, dropped out of Valley High in his senior year. Thanh Nguyen, a family spokesman but no relation, said Loi was "slow" and did poorly in school. "His mind is always elsewhere, never to what's at hand," he said in Vietnamese, adding, "He didn't have very many friends."

Loi also had trouble finding a job. Though unemployed, he was able to afford a car and - weeks before the shooting - bought three handguns at $300 each, authorities said.

Pham, the only one of the gunmen still in school, was attending Daylor William High School, a continuation school, taking three classes a day. He was transferred from Valley High because of attendance problems but was due to graduate in June.

"When Asians feel they are succeeding academically in the school, they feel all the difficulty of the new society can be compensated for," said Song Hahn, himself a Korean immigrant and one of Pham Nguyen's former teachers. "When they fail academically, they feel their life has ended. Pham felt he had failed."

Hahn described Pham as a loner.

But even with the youths' later troubles, some teachers remembered Pham, Long and Cuong Tram as obedient and pleasant.

Jay Tinsman, one of Pham's teachers at Daylor, said the 19-year-old seemed more comfortable at the smaller school and with a more limited class program. "He was a quiet kid," Tinsman said. "I considered him very bright. He did very well in his school work. He never missed a day."

On the morning of the shooting, he said, Pham came to school and asked to be excused from class, saying he had a toothache and wanted to go to the dentist.

"I think it's ironic," Tinsman said, "that he came and asked permission to be out of school that day, the day of the crime."

Despite Tran's expulsion from school, former teachers also recalled him fondly and were shocked most of all that he was involved in the Good Guys siege.

Florin High School teacher Bob Saari said that in the previous school year, Tran came to his classroom early every day to play chess and visit with other students.

"He was a good-natured kid, a funny kid, a giving kid," Saari said. "It's hard to put in perspective that what happened was the same kid I saw in my room."

Long Nguyen also came with Tran to Saari's "Breakfast Club" but was quieter and attracted less notice. "He was always polite to me, a pleasant kid from my experience," Saari recalled.