Vietnamese Family Terrorized, Robbed : Youths Enter Home, Beat Woman, Others and Flee With Loot

Members of a Vietnamese family in Westminster were blindfolded, beaten and threatened with death for about an hour early Wednesday morning by five Vietnamese youths who broke into their home and robbed them of about $4,000 worth of cash, electronic equipment and jewelry, police said.

The youths may have been members of an Asian gang that preys on its own people, Westminster Police Lt. Tom Broderson said. The motive apparently was robbery, police said.

At about 12:10 a.m. Wednesday, Dep Le, 30, was in her bathroom when she heard someone kicking at the back door of her house in the 9400 block of Westminster Boulevard.

Tried to Keep Intruders Out

She ran into the bedroom where her husband and their three sons were asleep and tried to keep the intruders out by leaning against the door, she said through a translator. She woke her husband and, in a whisper, told him to call police.

Le said her husband, Chien Dinh, 37, who speaks little English, tried to call police, but then the intruders kicked in the bedroom door. Her husband dashed to the adjacent bathroom to climb out the window, but he was caught before he reached the door, Le said.

The intruders pulled her hair and demanded money in Vietnamese, she said. She told them that the family came to the United States only a year and a half ago and had no money. The family is on welfare and receives some financial aid from a relative and money from a boarder, a daughter said. Neither Le nor her husband, who was disabled in Vietnam, is employed.

The intruders tied the parents’ hands behind their backs and blindfolded them, the family said. Le was taken outside the bedroom, thrown face-down on the living room floor, stripped of her clothes and kicked in the sides and on her back and neck. Le said she bled from wounds on her back and abdomen. She said she saw gang members carrying at least two small pistols and two knives.

The intruders also beat her husband and a cousin, who was staying overnight, in a hallway outside the bedroom, while some of the attackers stayed in the bedroom with the three boys, she said.

‘They Will Kill Us’

Le’s 10-year-old daughter, Mylinh, and Le’s sister, Hanh Le, were in the bedroom they share with Le. Mylinh woke up and asked Hanh Le what was going on. She said her aunt whispered, “Don’t talk so loud; they will kill us.”

“Somebody knocked on the door, but we didn’t open it,” Mylinh said. After a while, the sounds stopped, and she and Hanh Le remained silent.

Before the youths left, Le said, one of them told her to cook noodles for them. But Le said another attacker reminded the intruders that they had money and could eat at a restaurant.

They left with two VCRs, a stereo, five gold bracelets, two jade bracelets and a small amount of cash.

After the intruders left, the family said they called police again.

Le complained that the police didn’t respond to the family’s first call for help, but it was not clear whether her husband actually alerted officers to their plight as the intruders were breaking in.

“We never received a report of it until 1:13 a.m.,” Broderson said. He said the attack and robbery occurred approximately between 12:10 and 1:10 a.m.

Taken to Hospital

Paramedics treated everyone at the scene except Le, whom they took to Humana Hospital-Westminster.

Doctors told officers that Le was 3 to 5 weeks’ pregnant.

“There’s a possibility she miscarried, but we don’t know at this point,” Broderson said.

Times staff writer Mariann Hansen contributed to this article.