Vietnam cop arrested for shooting boss dead

By Kim Cuong, Thanh Nien News

Police in the southern province of Dong Nai have arrested a former traffic police officer for allegedly shooting his boss to death at their police station a week ago.

Police officers guard at Long Khanh General Hospital, where three police officers were being treated for gunshot wounds Sunday evening. Photo by Kim Cuong.

Sources told Thanh Nien News that former Captain Ngo Van Vinh, 38, was apprehended at 10 p.m. Friday at Dong Nai General Hospital’s Neurological Surgery Department, where he was being treated.

Vinh will be detained for four months to investigate him on charges of “murder under provocation.”

Dong Nai investigators and prosecutors said evidence collected showed that Vinh shot Major Tran Ngoc Son, deputy head of the traffic control station in Long Khanh Town’s Suoi Tre Commune, in the back with a pistol on September 22.

Senior Lieutenant Doan Thanh Phu was also shot when he tried to intervene.

Son, Phu and Vinh — who was also injured in the melee —  were all rushed to Long Khanh General Hospital, where Son died at 7:40 p.m. Phu and Vinh were transferred to Dong Nai General Hospital for further treatment.

Doctors said Phu was shot once in his buttocks and once in the groin, while Son had been shot in the midsection and suffered an aortic rupture.

Vinh also had an injury on his head, which was possibly grazed by a bullet, and suffered other injuries on his body.

Before the incident, Vinh was drinking at a karaoke parlor in Long Khanh Town and knew that Son was in the adjacent room with a man named Truc, according to a parlor employee. When Vinh decided to join them, Vinh and Truc had argument and Vinh went back to the police station.

Read the full story by Kim Cuong from Thanh Nien News.