ROBERT PRICE: Vongs aren't coming back; who would?
| Saturday, Nov 19 2011 10:00 PM
Last Updated Saturday, Nov 19 2011 10:00 PM
Now that Samrith Vong is off the hook for the fatal shooting of two men who harassed, threatened and assaulted him and his family on Oct. 18, his Central Cali Market can get back to the business of business in that underserved, low-income neighborhood. Right?
Uh, no, not right. Vong and his wife and son are not coming back to the corner of East California Avenue and King Street anytime soon, and probably not at all, ever. Vong, fearing retaliation, has moved his family out of Bakersfield. In fact, according to his attorney, Vong would like to sell the padlocked gas station/mini-market across the street from Martin Luther King Jr. Park that he has owned since 2006.
Good luck with that. Three separate shootings less than five years apart, in or near the store, hardly makes this a hot property. Vong chased some beer thieves into the park one night in September 2008, was brutally assaulted and then shot one of them in self-defense. Cops arrested the shooting victim, not Vong. A year earlier, one man was killed and three women wounded in a gang shooting in front of the market. Now this: Vong shoots two drunken ex-felons who threaten his wife and fracture his cheekbone when he tries to protect his family.
Neighborhood protestors incensed by the D.A.'s decision not to prosecute the Cambodian immigrant for killing David Lyons, 24, and Efrem Wandick, 41, have been picketing outside the market off and on for weeks. Picketing makes sense, but for altogether different reasons. The pickets should be demanding civility on their streets. They should be demanding responsibility and pride. They should be asking their neighbors to be prepared to sincerely welcome the next merchant who tries to make a go of it at that challenging location.
A neighborhood without viable business is a neighborhood with a desolate future. Markets, large and small, play a particularly important role in neighborhood cohesiveness, given the casual daily interaction between merchant and customer. It took then-Ward 1 Councilwoman Irma Carson years to convince a major grocery retailer to open a full service supermarket in the area; her persistence finally paid off in 2003 with a new Food Maxx a half-mile west of MLK Park at California and Union avenues, followed by an Albertsons at Brundage and Chester avenues later that year. When major grocery stores and other important services come in, these neighborhoods start to change for the better. The opposite occurs when bad elements drive business out.
Before we can move on, however, we need answers to some lingering questions about the Central Cali Market shootings.
District Attorney Lisa Green and her staff reviewed the surveillance tape and determined that Vong acted in self-defense. She refused to prosecute him, as the Bakersfield Police Department had recommended. Therefore we have no "criminal case," not even against the initial aggressors -- dead men cannot be prosecuted. So if there is no case, the primary evidence should be returned to its owner. The tape is Vong's property. But the BPD still has the tape and has given no indication that it intends to return it, or allow members of the public or news media to view or broadcast it. Perhaps Vong would feel differently were it his call to make. Showing the public what he went through might be instructive. His standing in the neighborhood certainly couldn't get any worse.
Showing the tape might also shed light on this: Why did the BPD's version of events differ so profoundly from the D.A.'s? Is the BPD concerned that the tape will bring into question the credibility of its investigation? Was it trying to appease a community that has often had an iffy, distrustful relationship with police? I suspect the BPD would like to see this case go the way of the Cambodian store owners, and just disappear. That strategy just might prove effective, if the goal is to prevent further embarrassment to the BPD. But it won't answer the question that still troubles many: Exactly who was the victim here?
Email Editorial Page Editor Robert Price at rprice@bakersfield.com.
