Grasshopper
07-23-2005, 12:46 AM
http://lang.dailybulletin.com/socal/gangs/articles/lbp4_side.asp
L.B.'s high profile gang homicide cases
By Tracy Manzer, Staff writer
Lance Cpl. Sok Khak Ung, 22
Vouthy Tho, 21
Long Beach made national headlines last fall when a young Marine home from the war in Iraq was killed at a backyard barbecue by an unknown gunman, believed to be a gang member.
http://www.lifeinlegacy.com/2003/1025/UngSokKhak.jpg
Lance Cpl. Sok Khak Ung, 22, had been in an expeditionary force sent to help with the rescue of private Jessica Lynch. In addition to the Purple Heart, the young Marine had received a Combat Action Ribbon, Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal and National Defense Service Medal as well as two Sea Service Deployment ribbons.
Killed with Ung was his good friend Vouthy Tho, a popular Wilson High School grad who was taking classes at Long Beach City College. Tho, 21, an aspiring rap artist, was celebrating Ung's return with other friends and family when the shooter pointed a gun over a backyard fence and opened fire.
Their deaths were more than the local Khmer community could bear, and they flooded the Long Beach City Council Chamber, pleading for action. Tho and Ung's deaths sparked the first Mile of Men march in Long Beach, organized by The ROCK Christian Fellowship Church. Some 200 men stood in vigil on a stretch of Seventh Street near where the young Marine and his friend had fallen.
Church members said they wanted to honor the fallen marine, and to take a stand against all gang and youth violence. Despite heavy media attention and a $25,000 reward, the gunman remains at large.
http://www.popasmoke.com/notam2/archive/index.php/t-3877.html
Funeral held for slain Marine
October 27, 2003
By Elizabeth Lydon
Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO — Marine Lance Cpl. Sok Khak Ung survived war in Iraq only to die in a hail of gunfire at his father’s Southern California home.
On Sunday, he was mourned by friends and family members who recalled him as a dedicated military man.
“He was a man of honor, a Marine to the heart,” Naomi Stephens, Ung’s sister-in-law, said at a viewing ceremony attended by sobbing relatives and Marines in dress uniforms. “He loved what he did.”
Ung, 22, returned from active duty in Iraq in July, but was killed at his father’s Long Beach home earlier this month by an unknown gunman, according to police.
At the viewing ceremony in the city’s Mission District, Ung’s body was clad in his Marine dress uniform in an open casket draped with an American flag. A Buddhist shrine and a floral arrangement bearing a “US Marine Corps” sash both stood nearby.
Overcome with emotion, relatives said they could not talk about the irony of Ung’s survival in a foreign war followed so closely by his death at his father’s home.
A combat engineer from San Francisco, Ung participated in the rescue of Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch from an Iraqi hospital in April. Ung was a member of the “diversion force” that attacked Iraqi soldiers to distract them while a special operations unit went into the hospital to rescue Lynch.
Later that month, Ung was hit by shrapnel from a land mine, wounds that earned him a Purple Heart.
After returning from Iraq in July, Ung was stationed at Camp Pendleton, near San Diego, where he was set to complete his four years of military service on Oct. 31. He planned to return to San Francisco, where he grew up, and attend San Francisco State University starting in January.
But just 12 days before he was to be discharged from the military, as he attended a party at his father’s house in Long Beach, Ung was struck down by a gunman who leaned over a wooden fence at the father’s home and fired six to eight shots into the garage, where Ung was standing with a friend. Both young men were killed. The gunmen fled and has not been caught.
“Unfortunately there is no new information,” Long Beach police spokesman Greg Schirmer said Sunday. “Our detectives are continuing to investigate. They’re working diligently on the case.”
L.B.'s high profile gang homicide cases
By Tracy Manzer, Staff writer
Lance Cpl. Sok Khak Ung, 22
Vouthy Tho, 21
Long Beach made national headlines last fall when a young Marine home from the war in Iraq was killed at a backyard barbecue by an unknown gunman, believed to be a gang member.
http://www.lifeinlegacy.com/2003/1025/UngSokKhak.jpg
Lance Cpl. Sok Khak Ung, 22, had been in an expeditionary force sent to help with the rescue of private Jessica Lynch. In addition to the Purple Heart, the young Marine had received a Combat Action Ribbon, Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal and National Defense Service Medal as well as two Sea Service Deployment ribbons.
Killed with Ung was his good friend Vouthy Tho, a popular Wilson High School grad who was taking classes at Long Beach City College. Tho, 21, an aspiring rap artist, was celebrating Ung's return with other friends and family when the shooter pointed a gun over a backyard fence and opened fire.
Their deaths were more than the local Khmer community could bear, and they flooded the Long Beach City Council Chamber, pleading for action. Tho and Ung's deaths sparked the first Mile of Men march in Long Beach, organized by The ROCK Christian Fellowship Church. Some 200 men stood in vigil on a stretch of Seventh Street near where the young Marine and his friend had fallen.
Church members said they wanted to honor the fallen marine, and to take a stand against all gang and youth violence. Despite heavy media attention and a $25,000 reward, the gunman remains at large.
http://www.popasmoke.com/notam2/archive/index.php/t-3877.html
Funeral held for slain Marine
October 27, 2003
By Elizabeth Lydon
Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO — Marine Lance Cpl. Sok Khak Ung survived war in Iraq only to die in a hail of gunfire at his father’s Southern California home.
On Sunday, he was mourned by friends and family members who recalled him as a dedicated military man.
“He was a man of honor, a Marine to the heart,” Naomi Stephens, Ung’s sister-in-law, said at a viewing ceremony attended by sobbing relatives and Marines in dress uniforms. “He loved what he did.”
Ung, 22, returned from active duty in Iraq in July, but was killed at his father’s Long Beach home earlier this month by an unknown gunman, according to police.
At the viewing ceremony in the city’s Mission District, Ung’s body was clad in his Marine dress uniform in an open casket draped with an American flag. A Buddhist shrine and a floral arrangement bearing a “US Marine Corps” sash both stood nearby.
Overcome with emotion, relatives said they could not talk about the irony of Ung’s survival in a foreign war followed so closely by his death at his father’s home.
A combat engineer from San Francisco, Ung participated in the rescue of Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch from an Iraqi hospital in April. Ung was a member of the “diversion force” that attacked Iraqi soldiers to distract them while a special operations unit went into the hospital to rescue Lynch.
Later that month, Ung was hit by shrapnel from a land mine, wounds that earned him a Purple Heart.
After returning from Iraq in July, Ung was stationed at Camp Pendleton, near San Diego, where he was set to complete his four years of military service on Oct. 31. He planned to return to San Francisco, where he grew up, and attend San Francisco State University starting in January.
But just 12 days before he was to be discharged from the military, as he attended a party at his father’s house in Long Beach, Ung was struck down by a gunman who leaned over a wooden fence at the father’s home and fired six to eight shots into the garage, where Ung was standing with a friend. Both young men were killed. The gunmen fled and has not been caught.
“Unfortunately there is no new information,” Long Beach police spokesman Greg Schirmer said Sunday. “Our detectives are continuing to investigate. They’re working diligently on the case.”