Tacoma Funerals Overflow With Grief -- Service For 5 Shooting Victims Seen As A Time `To Express Their Grief And Demand Justice'

TACOMA - The 11-year-old boy stood by the open casket, peering inside and consoling his crying mother at the same time.

As reporters, photographers and well-wishers threatened to edge his family to the side, the boy in the oversized black suit stood his ground, forcing everyone to walk around his family.

"It's my brother," Tri Phuong Ai Nguyen said of Nhan Ai Nguyen, 26, one of five people gunned down last Sunday in the Trang Dai cafe.

He wasn't angry. He even said the memorial service was good for the community.

"That's pretty insightful," Thanh Manh Nguyen, a member of the Vietnamese Community of Tacoma-Pierce County, said of the boy's comment. "This is good for the community - to express their grief and demand justice."

For more than four hours yesterday, mourners were reminded that this was a time for healing, a time to rebuild an emotionally shattered Vietnamese community, a time to cooperate with police to catch the killers.

"More urgent than ever, we must unite, hand in hand, to build a safe and secure community," Vietnamese Community President Cuong Nguyen said in Vietnamese to a crowd of more than 700 at the Mountain View Funeral Home and Memorial Park.

The crowd was so large that many people spilled into the parking lot and huddled around two speakers set up outside.

It was so large that the service was delayed a half-hour so that well-wishers could drop off flowers and light incense by the five caskets.

Two of the victims' mothers fainted, while another had to be restrained as her son's casket was closed.

One woman shouted, "When? When justice will come?"

It was a sentiment shared by many, especially the families of the victims killed when three gunmen entered the karaoke bar and fired at 16 customers and employees.

Slain along with Nguyen were Tuyen Vo, 21,; Tuong Hung Dang Do, 33; and brothers Duy Quang Le, 25, and Hai Quang Le, 27. All had lived in the Tacoma area.

Tacoma police, with 100 officers working on the case, still have no motive or suspects. They hoped that the funeral service might prompt witnesses to come forward.

"Someone has to know something," said Lt. Jim Walker.

But the only thing many Vietnamese at the service said they knew was that the victims' families will never again be the same.

For the Vo family, the loss of its breadwinner, Tuyen, means family members can no longer send much money back to Vietnam to support their mother.

It means the Nguyen family won't soon be moving out of public housing in Everett and into a house in Seattle as the deceased son, Nhan, had assured would happen after his planned marriage in November.

It means the Do family won't get to see its oldest son, Tuong, marry, buy a house and live his American dream.

It means the Le family will have two empty seats at each family gathering.

As Bon Le cried hysterically over losing her two sons, others urged her family to let her get her grief out, because she had twice the pain.

As the cries echoed throughout the chapel, civic leaders tried to speak.

Tacoma Mayor Brian Ebersole said the killings were a "tragedy," but added, "We will get through this hard time together."

Gov. Gary Locke, through a spokesman, sent his condolences and called the incident an "injustice and profound loss."

When the speakers were finished and the caskets were about to be closed, a teary-eyed Sanh Thi Ngo Nguyen leaned toward her son's casket, stroked her child's hair and said, "Be strong, my son."

Vietnamese business and community leaders have scheduled a candlelight vigil at 5 p.m. today at the Trang Dai cafe on South Yakima Street.

Tan Vinh's phone message number is 206-515-5656. His e-mail address is: tvinh@seattletimes.com