School Fight Reinvestigated as Hate Crime : Violence: Supervisor Mike Antonovich and a parents group prompt the district attorney’s second inquiry into an attack on two Chinese-American brothers.

At the urging of Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich and a group of Chinese-American parents, the district attorney’s office has decided to reinvestigate an attack on two Chinese-American brothers at San Gabriel High School as a possible racially motivated hate crime.

The district attorney’s office initially said it would not file charges against eight students arrested after the March 19 incident in which the Chinese-American brothers were allegedly beaten in the high school parking lot by a group of Latino students.

Later that month, however, the district attorney filed criminal charges against two Vietnamese students who allegedly attacked two white students--a decision Antonovich said appeared discriminatory.

In an April 16 letter to Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner urging that he reopen the case, Antonovich wrote: “My constituents have complained that your office is being racist by failing to file criminal charges against those individuals who attacked (the Chinese brothers), while filing criminal charges against two San Gabriel High School Vietnamese-American students who attacked two non-Asian students.”

The Chinese American Parents and Teachers Assn. of Southern California, a group concerned about racial tension at the high school, also asked Reiner to look into the matter.

But officials in the district attorney’s office denied that race was a factor in sending only one group of students to court. The first case was dropped, they said, because it was unclear whether the brothers, Andy and Tim Chen, were victims of an unprovoked attack or whether they were partly responsible for the fight.

“Cases are rejected many, many times” when investigators believe injuries resulted from a confrontation between two parties rather than an attack on innocent victims, said Frank Sundstedt, head deputy district attorney in the office’s organized crime unit, which is reinvestigating the first incident.

“To the extent that Supervisor Antonovich is indicating racism was involved, that’s absolutely untrue and inaccurate,” Sundstedt added.

Sundstedt said he decided to investigate the assault as a possible hate crime after reading police and newspaper accounts of the incident. Andy Chen, 18, told reporters that one of his attackers swore at him and called him “Chino” before a fight ensued. Both brothers were kicked and punched repeatedly in the face and back.

A 1987 state law established hate crimes as a separate category for crimes committed against victims because of their race, religion or sexual orientation.

Although it increased fines for those convicted of misdemeanor hate crimes, the law does not impose longer jail sentences, Sundstedt said.

He said the maximum punishment for misdemeanor hate crimes committed on school property--such as an assault--is six months in jail. For a non-racially motivated battery on school property, the maximum sentence is one year.

Meanwhile, officials in the Alhambra School District--which includes San Gabriel High--are considering expelling five of the eight Latino students arrested in the March 19 attack. All five now are on suspension.

The school suspended, but will not expel, four Vietnamese-American students arrested in the second incident, a March 26 hallway confrontation that began when one of the four allegedly pushed a white student down, then called him “white boy,” according to a police report.

Two of the students--Khuong Lay Tang and Hoang Duc Thai, both 18--were charged with misdemeanor battery and pleaded not guilty April 30. They face a pretrial hearing June 4 in Alhambra Municipal Court. If convicted, each could receive a maximum one-year sentence in Los Angeles County Jail, Sundstedt said.

Sundstedt said he decided not to investigate the March 26 attack as a hate crime after reviewing police reports of the incident.