Vietnamese Community: ‘Eden Center is Safe, Shooting Incident Was Isolated’

Thuy Ngo still feels safe working and hanging out at the Eden Center days after she found The Vu, 39, one of two men killed in , slumped over in his car.

Around 11:30 p.m. Saturday, Ngo was ready to leave her job as a cook at . She said many patrons that night paid their bills and left after police told them to stay inside because of a shooting investigation outside. Ngo walked to her car out back of the restaurant but couldn’t move.

Instead of beeping her horn to get the car blocking her in the driveway behind the restaurant, Ngo walked to the car and asked the man to move. From a distance, the man appeared to be asleep and slumped over the steering wheel. As she got closer, she saw the car windows were down and the man had a hole in his head and blood and brain matter was everywhere.

“I yelled for help but people thought I was joking because they couldn’t understand me over the music playing at a nearby restaurant,” said Ngo who said finding the body of the unidentified man didn’t bother her because her father, a member of the Vietnamese Marines in the 1970s trained her and her brothers to be tough. “I ran to get the police and they followed me to where the man was.”

City of Falls Church police are still investigating the two shootings that occurred Saturday around 10 p.m. at the . No motive has been given for the shootings and Susan Finarelli, spokeswoman for the city, said police have not said if the two shootings are connected.

As people meandered around the shops at the Eden Center Tuesday, the gray SUV of Tai Phan, one of the men killed, sat desolate in the parking lot under the hot sun. Business was as usual with shops filled with people taking in a cup of coffee, a meal or doing grocery shopping for the week, all with smiles on their faces.

Shop owners and others, like Ngo, said the shooting could have happened anywhere, it just so happened this time it was at the Eden Center.

Kenny Tran said the shooting was not gang-related and the Eden Center is still a good place to shop and visit.

“Everyone in the Vietnamese community has to stand up and tell people they will not be in danger if they come to the Eden Center,” said Tran, president/CEO of KTJL Corporation, a wholesale meat and seafood distribution company that caters to Eden Center restaurants. “I’m here everyday for my customers but besides that, I come here with my family to eat and just hang out.”

Word of the alleged “Dragon Family” operating in the Eden Center spread in by the Northern Virginia Regional Gang Task Force. The task force alleged they arrested members of the Dragon Family in the raid while shutting down an illegal gambling ring. Several of the misdemeanor in court.

Binh Nguyen, president of the Vietnamese-American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Washington, D.C., said there are no gangs at the Eden Center. He said he doesn’t want people to think the shooting was at all gang related.

“We don’t condone violence,” Nguyen said. “The Eden Center is very unique and very special.”

For the last 15 years, Christopher Phan has operated his custom jewelry business in the Eden Center and outside the occasional inside, he hasn’t witnessed any criminal activity. Phan, who immigrated to the United States in 1982, said he was shocked to hear about Saturday’s shootings. He said the Eden Center is a great place for people to come to try new things and experience the Vietnamese culture.

“This community is a very quiet community and very peaceful,” Phan said. “If anything big happens here, we just keep on going. For the last 15 years, nothing like this has happened here.”