Koreans Los Angeles

A rookie police officer in the Los Angeles Police Department's West Valley Division has been arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, and investigators are probing allegations that the officer may have ties to a street gang, sources familiar with the case said Tuesday. According to those sources, investigators searched the home of Officer Peter Chong on Thursday.

To motorists whizzing by on Olympic Boulevard, Koreatown may seem like just another nondescript inner-city strip of shops, restaurants and bars. But to many of the 75 million ethnic Koreans around the world, Los Angeles' Koreatown is well-known and a very special place: It's the capital of Koreans in America. Despite Koreatown's sometimes tawdry appearance and high crime rate, Koreans enjoy coming here because it gives them a sense of belonging.

Jasmin Salehi, the South Korean woman who may be forced out of the country because she had not been married long enough when her American husband was murdered, can stay for the trial of his accused killer, the Immigration and Naturalization Service said Friday. Salehi, as well as the deputy district attorney prosecuting the man who allegedly shot her husband of 11 months, however, expressed concern that she could still be deported when the trial ends.

Three men accused of killing a South Korean woman during an exorcism ritual, including an official of a Glendale church, were ordered Wednesday to stand trial for murder.

A somber congregation at a small Korean immigrant church in Glendale worshiped together Sunday for the first time since two men from the church were charged with murder in the death of a woman in an exorcism ritual. "We all feel like we've been struck by a thunderbolt," said Sam Joo Cho, 46, a deacon at Glendale Calvary Presbyterian Church. "We know that a terrible thing has happened because a woman is dead. At the same time, we also know that these are good men.

The missionary husband of a South Korean woman and two other men pleaded not guilty Tuesday to murder charges stemming from her death during an exorcism ritual. Jae Whoa Chung, 49, a missionary to Bangladesh, Sung Soon Choi, a 41-year-old missionary in China, and Jin Hyun Choi, a 46-year-old deacon at a Korean church in Glendale, were arraigned before Municipal Judge Rosemary Shumsky in West Los Angeles.

On the third day of Christmas, Dong-Sik) Chong, 81, stepped outside his family home in Koreatown for his daily walk. "Don't go too far, Father," his daughter, Yong-Sook Becher, cautioned him. The old man and his wife had just moved in with his daughter's family in their new home. When Chong, who is hard of hearing and doesn't speak English, didn't return home at the usual time, family members scoured the neighborhood and filed a missing-person report.

Memories of hardship and survival are revived as Soo Dong Chong, 83, a Korean immigrant, talks about her past while she completes her citizenship application. She signs the form, reaches for a zippered purse tucked under her sweater and hands over the $95 processing fee. "I should have done this years ago," she says in Korean to Aaron Jin, a 21-year-old immigrant himself and a staffer at the Korean American Coalition, a nonprofit community agency in Los Angeles' Koreatown.

A reputed gang member was arrested on suspicion of murder Monday in connection with a shootout at an upscale Koreatown restaurant that left one man dead and two others wounded, police said. The violence erupted about 11:30 p.m. Sunday at the Aikan Restaurant after four suspected gang members strolled in, began arguing with a group of other reputed gang members, then opened fire, Los Angeles police said. Fatally wounded in the exchange of gunfire was Lim Chi Song, 22.

FIGHTING CUTBACKS: A coalition of Asian Pacific Islander advocate groups launched a campaign Thursday to defeat federal proposals limiting the immigration of legal immigrants' family members and excluding most legal immigrants from receiving federal assistance.