From 'nice kid' to restaurant shootout

Alleged restaurant shooter was living at halfway house

By Jeff Kass, Rocky Mountain News (Contact), Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published November 16, 2007 at 12:30 a.m.
Updated November 16, 2007 at 7:35 a.m.

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Photo by Javier Manzano © The Rocky

Ballistics markers trace the paths of bullets through windows and across dining tables at Ha Noi restaurant. The shootout between a robbery suspect and two police officers Wednesday left five people injured.

Dang, accused of armed robbery, is in critical condition.

Photo by Javier Manzano © The Rocky

An investigator examines the scene a day after a shooting at the Ha Noi Vietnamese restaurant on South Federal Boulevard. A masked man burst in to rob the business Wednesday, and two undercover police officers shot him several times.

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Denver defense attorney Jeffrey A. Trujillo remembers his teenage client as a "very mild- mannered, nice kid" who was "respectful" when Trujillo visited him in jail.

Although Phuong Van Dang was in a violent gang, facing multiple felonies, before he was old enough to vote, Trujillo was surprised to learn Thursday that Denver police shot his one-time client in the midst of what appears to be a botched armed robbery.

"He was 16 (in 1998), and he got a huge sentence," Trujillo said Thursday. "You're just a child, and you get sent to prison for the better part of your life, and you get another chance and you fall back on your old ways."

Now 26, Dang was wearing a dark bandana over his mouth and nose at noon Wednesday when he entered the Ha Noi Vietnamese restaurant on South Federal Boulevard, according to police.

He allegedly pointed a black shotgun at restaurant patrons and pushed a black duffel bag toward them.

But among the 16 customers and workers in the lunch scene were Denver police Detective Jesse Avendano and Sgt. John Pinder. Dressed in plainclothes but on duty, the officers exchanged gunfire with Dang, who is now in critical condition at Denver Health Medical Center.

Shots from the officers also injured three patrons - a middle-aged couple and their adult son - and one of the officers suffered cuts around his eyes from glass shards.

"This guy is a dangerous career criminal," Police Chief Gerry Whitman said during a news conference Thursday night. "He's done prison time. He had the potential to do some pretty nasty things."

Parents hard-working

Trujillo recalls that Dang's parents were hard-working Vietnamese immigrants who didn't speak English. The attorney said he did not charge a huge retainer, but the parents labored to pay it.

The teen's parents were "supporting and loving" and came to all of the hearings. But Trujillo added, "I don't believe they realized the level of gang involvement he had."

Dang's first case, court records say, came in October 1997 out of Arapahoe County. At 16, he faced five felony charges and one misdemeanor, but pleaded guilty only to aggravated robbery, a felony.

In January 1998, Dang was in the Penny Lane arcade in Jefferson County when he and several unknown friends were accused of shooting an arcade worker in the back, said Kath erine Sanguinetti, spokes woman for the state Department of Corrections.

Dang was given 18 years in the Jefferson County case for first- degree assault, Sanguinetti said. He was to serve three years for menacing and 12 months for misdemeanor assault on that same case concurrently.

His sentence in the Arapahoe County case was also to be served concurrently.

Before his 17th birthday, Dang was shipped off to the Buena Vista Correctional Facility, Sanguinetti said. Thus began an eight-year trip through four other Colorado prisons, including the maximum-security Colorado State Penitentiary in Canon City.

Dang had seven violations while in the prison system, Sanguinetti said. Most -such as refusal to work and disobeying a lawful order - were minor.

Details were not available Thursday, but an assault violation may have been more problematic, Sanguinetti said. But the one clearly serious case was possessing contraband while at the Fremont Correctional Facility.

Dang received a three-year sentence for that, to be served concurrently with his original 18 years.

Out of prison in 2006

But by mid-October 2006, Dang was out of prison and living at Correctional Management Inc.'s halfway house at 3955 Ulster St. in Denver. Dang worked at a plumbing and heating company, Sanguinetti believed, and only recorded two minor, halfway house violations.

Dang would have finished his sentence and mandatory parole on Jan. 5, 2017.

At the Ha Noi restaurant Thursday, a plate glass window featured six bullet holes while the orange and blue neon sign flashed "Open."

But the yellow crime scene tape indicated otherwise.

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