SDPD Sergeant’s Suicide Haunts Family, Colleagues : Aftermath: Impending demotion preceded death of Korean-American, who was widely admired.

SAN DIEGO —  For five years, Sgt. Benjamin Chu stood larger than life, the immigrant pioneer whom the San Diego Police Department and thousands of Korean-Americans in San Diego could not praise highly enough.

But, in the past year, just when he earned his sergeant’s stripes, Chu found that he could not live up to his superhuman image. In the end, the ethnicity and achievements for which Chu had been admired posed too great a burden.

Shortly before dawn on the last day of June, Chu, 38, fatally shot himself in the head, leaving family, colleagues and Korean-Americans whose lives he touched through police and volunteer work to struggle through the reasons why.

Because Chu proved himself an intelligent, affable cop with unquestioned dedication to the force, his memory has stuck in the minds of many officers. That sterling reputation, now tainted by suicide, haunts the department.

“The department was Ben, it was in him,” Chu’s wife, Michelle, said last week. “But the way he was treated when he became sergeant, it was like they stopped caring. That’s what really hurt Ben.”

From conversations with her husband in recent months, Michelle Chu said the stress of new management duties and demoralizing evaluations had eroded Chu’s confidence, pushing him at times into a shell of brooding solitude.

A weeklong quandary over failing his sergeant’s probation preceded Chu’s suicide, Michelle Chu said. It was a period in which she often found her husband lost in thought, his face contorted in concern.

When family and friends were able to draw Chu away from pondering, he would quietly utter a common Korean expression: “ Ay, chukettah .” I’m dying.

On the Thursday before the suicide, Michelle Chu said, her husband despaired over an evaluation and a pending demotion that he felt unjust. The thought of being stripped of his sergeant status left Chu feeling abandoned by a department into which he poured his all, Michelle Chu said.

Michelle Chu said in an interview last week that she did not want to discuss the details of her husband’s employment history and added that any criticism of the department has been muted by uncertainty and grief. She said her time has been occupied by tending to her 4-year-old son, Minkyu, and 5-month-old daughter, Hee Un.

“There are several things that bother me about the way the San Diego Police Department system treated Ben,” she said. “I don’t know if the treatment was normal. That’s what I want to find out--if it was usual. I haven’t talked to anyone about it . . . but in my opinion it didn’t seem fair.”

From the department’s point of view, Chu had been afforded every accommodation possible to maintain his rank and progress.

“For some officers, it’s a tough transition” from patrol officer to sergeant, said Harry O. Eastus, president of the Police Officers Assn., the department’s labor group. “Some people are cut out for it and do well. Some have a tougher time. But (Chu) was well-liked, and those around him were making every effort to help him.”

Last week, Chief Bob Burgreen began summoning into his office the people who knew Chu best. Burgreen said he would talk to a dozen or so people, including Chu’s immediate supervisor, Lt. Greg Fay, whom some in the department describe as the primary source of Chu’s stress.

“We can say that he was having problems at work that could have led to his suicide,” said Lt. John Welter, who is the lead investigator on the case. “We need to know his motivation in doing what he did so we can try and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Although the details of the investigation may never be made public, Chu’s problems began in late August, 1991, when he was promoted to sergeant.

Those familiar with his case say Chu’s report-writing was often incoherent, that he shrank from leadership situations and fumbled over tough decisions.

In one instance, he was teamed with another sergeant with whom he prepared to make a quick bust by bursting into a house thought to be used for trafficking drugs. A team led by Chu was to take the house from the front. Another squad led by the second sergeant was to strike from the back.

While the arrests were being made, Chu was found waiting in a patrol car, having never stepped foot in the house. Supervisors said he appeared “petrified.” Chu said he had been protecting the squad cars.

Despite colleagues who tried to help and a recent leave from his regular assignment to attend a two-week crash course in sergeant’s training, department officials said, Chu was told he was not cut out to be a supervisor.

The news was sobering and profoundly humiliating. After five years of praise, Chu felt abandoned. In the department’s zeal to promote people of color, it had put Chu in a situation where he was almost certain to fail, without the management tools he needed to command a team of officers, many inside and outside the department said.

Within the department, Chu’s death hit hard, forcing many in the agency’s hierarchy to reflect on whether his ascent was perhaps too quick.

Chu was considered a groundbreaker, not only the first Korean-American to join the force but the first Asian-American to make the rank of sergeant, said Kerry Tom, an Asian community relations assistant to Burgreen. It was a distinction made more noteworthy because of the speed with which Chu was promoted--just five years after graduating from the academy. It took Burgreen six years to make sergeant. Many with 20 or 30 years experience have never made it.

Since he was hired in 1986, Chu had been a standout.

He was enthusiastic. An overachiever. At all times, his uniform was expertly pressed and shoes finely shined, a product of three years duty in the Korean Marine Corps, which bred attention to detail.

“We were showing Ben off a little bit,” said D.K. Abbott, an officer who runs a police storefront that specializes in work with the city’s Indochinese population. “You looked at this man, and he was . . . a showpiece.”

Eager to take advantage of Chu’s presence, Abbott carted then-officer Chu to various Korean-American functions. To community leaders, Chu was introduced as one of the department’s rising stars.

Later, a federal employee spotted Chu getting out of a patrol car with his sergeant’s stripes, and mentioned to Abbott how impressive he looked. Abbott was delighted.

Almost immediately, Chu was placed on a list of department interpreters to assist on cases involving Korean-Americans. He grew extremely popular with other Asian-American officers.

Chu took his sergeant’s exam seriously, studying for two years before he attempted the test. He carried flash cards with him that contained police codes and policies and procedures to memorize. On the written portion of the exam, Chu scored among the highest of about 150 people who were certified as sergeant, Abbott said. Overall, Chu was in the top 30 candidates.

Every three months, the department promotes five to 10 sergeants, and Chu, because of affirmative action goals, jumped over a number of higher-scoring candidates. The practice is not uncommon, Burgreen said.

“I kept telling him, ‘My man, this is the year of the Asian. Affirmative action is alive and well, and you guys are going to be fast-tracked,’ ” Abbott said. “I talked to Burgreen about fast-tracking. And, when Ben made sergeant, I thought the buttons on Burgreen’s coat were going to pop off. He was so proud. We all were.”

Chu’s promotion subjected him to peer scrutiny, making his a test case of sorts in a wide-ranging program to hire and promote minorities. The department boasts an excellent track record of filling officer positions with people of color, and also has made inroads among some higher-ranking administrative positions, Tom said.

Burgreen has said that 36% of his promotions during his four years as chief have been in the so-called “protected class,” which includes women and people of color. The number had been 18% under his predecessor, he said.

Being the first Asian-American to make sergeant, Chu bore an added burden of proving that the advancement was not tokenism, Tom said.

“Any time there is a promotion, you get grudges as far as favoritism goes,” he said. “When you’re a person of color, petty jealousy is a given. You always hear grumbling about affirmative action.”

A letter sent anonymously to The Times last week summarized the resentment many in the department felt about the affirmative action prodding of minority officers, such as Chu.

“He is the most horrible example of how the department’s affirmative action appointment can be bad for both the department and the employees,” the letter said. “He tried his best to do a job he was not qualified to do. If the department’s affirmative action policies aren’t exposed for the racist harmful practices they are, it is only a matter of time before other Ben Chus will suffer the effects of those policies.”

Two years ago, Chu was barely beaten out for the coveted job of community relations assistant to the chief of police for Asian affairs by officer Tom, who since then also has been promoted to sergeant.

Although it was likely that Chu was going to be transferred to the assistant position Tom was about to vacate, department officials said, a firm decision had not been made, and Chu was not aware of any plans.

“They said they had the answers . . . that they were working all along with Ben,” Michelle Chu said. “Why would they wait to say something? Until this happened? By then it was too late.”

The week before the suicide, Chu met with his union attorney who had apparently worked out a compromise. Chu would become a police agent, a one-step demotion, rather than a patrolman, a demotion of two levels, department officials said.

Over the weekend, Chu appeared satisfied with the deal and generally upbeat about his career, friends said. Chu had Monday off. Before sunrise Tuesday, he shot himself.

Sometime during the night, he had reached for the backup pistol he regularly kept strapped to his calf.

Chu was found dead on his living room sofa about 4 a.m. July 30 by his wife, with whom Chu earlier had spent the evening watching television. After midnight, she went to bed alone when he told her that he “needed some time to think.”

Entries from Chu’s journal and accounts from relatives, friends and department investigators lay out the ironic story of an immigrant dreamer for whom life had been a series of triumphs.

“We looked up to Ben as an iron man,” said Father Desmond Maguire, the priest at Holy Family Catholic Church where Chu attended. “He was the ultimate in kindness and reaching out to others. He really burned the candle at both ends in that regard. . . . Looking back now, it seems too much so.”

Chu’s rapid rise in the department was characteristic of a man who collected personal achievements at a dizzying pace. Since immigrating to San Diego in 1978 at age 24, Chu embarked on an immigrant life replete with hard work. Within two years, Chu had exceeded all standards of self-motivation, becoming almost a parody of the diligent, hard-working immigrant.

“When I went to an accountant’s office to see about my first income-tax filing,” Chu wrote in series of journal entries submitted to a nonfiction writing contest sponsored by a local Korean-language newspaper, “I told them I worked as many jobs as I could fit in a day, and handed them nine W-2 forms.”

Janitor. Gas station attendant. Boat scraper. House painter. Security guard. Convalescent home orderly. Dive shop employee. Chu put away most of his savings to pay tuition for scuba diving school, which he had dreamed of attending since he was a middle-school student in Korea.

For more than a decade, Chu had harbored a plan to emigrate from his native coastal city, Inchon. He was inspired by a water sports magazine that described Southern California diving spots. “San Diego,” the magazine read, “is a mecca for divers.”

His future was decided. He was 13.

“On the plane over from Korea, I cried my eyes out,” Chu wrote in his journal. “I was finally going to the United States. . . . I made up my mind. No matter what kind of hardship I may go through, no matter what kind of pain, I’m going to become Korea’s best scuba diver anyway. That’s my dream.”

Four years after he arrived in the United States, Chu was certified to teach on the highest level of instruction by the Professional Assn. of Diving Instructors, again the first Korean to do so. He was one of about 50 master divers to be internationally certified by the association.

“After I had achieved my dream,” Chu wrote, “I thought, ‘What can I do to repay this feeling of satisfaction I’ve been given?’ . . . I wanted to serve others. . . . I decided to become a police officer.”

More than 300 relatives and friends attended Chu’s funeral on the Fourth of July, including a contingent of Korean-American officers from the Los Angeles Police Department and 100 members from the San Diego force.

Those eulogizing Chu said he would be remembered for helping ease the cultural transition for scores of Korean immigrant families in San Diego. Chu had always been quick to volunteer his knowledge of the city and relate his own trials in adjusting to the United States.

The words spoke of hope, but the faces of Chu’s Korean-American peers bore a grim resolve. Chu had not just been a role model for children but for all first-generation immigrants who have struggled with the adjustment obstacles that restrict life in a new country.

“Ben Chu was not an ordinary person,” said Alex Kim, a family friend and vice chairman of the San Diego Korean Assn. “He would dream wild dreams, then make a plan. What set him apart from others was he followed through.”

Chu had made it into the mainstream by adhering to his own survival philosophy of head-down, straight ahead, hard work and determination. His death, friends say, will bear the memory that life is not so simple.

“Ben did everything perfect,” said San Diego Police Officer Jack Lee, a pallbearer at the funeral. “Almost perfect.”