The location is Pawnee and Broadway, in rough and tumble south central Wichita. Just outside the front door to a convenience store called Discount Cigarettes and Gas, Phong Nguyen argues with an unidentified man. The video starts with a verbal confrontation and then a shoving match ensues between the diminutive Asian man and his much larger opponent. The video switches to an exterior camera. In the bottom right corner, Phong’s arms swing back and forth as haymakers land on the unfortunate man. Phong follows that up with a swift kick. The man sits up and appears to reach back toward his pants for something. But he quickly puts up two empty hands in the universal sign for surrender. Phong reenters the frame pointing a handgun at the man, straddles him and turns back to speak to a woman. He hands her what appears to be a gun. Phong handcuffs the man. The video ends. According to Phong, the man had a Smith and Wesson 9mm pistol with one in the chamber.
“Everybody heard about the myth,
the man,” Phong said. “Everybody heard about the bald Asian guy at the corner
store: don’t fuck with him. Don’t mess with him. Everybody heard about that.”
According to Phong, police records
would indicate that he’s pulled out his gun in self-defense 36 times. None of
those times did he pull the trigger.
“Cops will sit here and say, ‘I
can’t believe you didn’t kill him.’ Because when you look on video, a cop would
have shot them,” Phong said.
In order to understand Phong, it
helps to rewind to the 1970s. The Vietnam War had ended with his family on the
losing side. His father carries shrapnel in his legs as a reminder of his stint
in the South Vietnamese Army. In 1982 he fled the country, hoping to reach
America. Phong, his mother, brother and aunt fled into the jungle two years
later, hoping to join his dad. The family packed into a canoe and headed into
the ocean. At one point, the boat flipped and Phong describes the young version
of himself beginning to drown. He awoke in the boat, rescued by a relative. The
family arrived safely in the Philippines and then made their way to Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia. On April 20 of 1984, they finally arrived in America.
After a stint in Houston, they ended
up in Wichita, where his uncle had established an Asian grocery store. But the
family wouldn’t stay together. His father left for California and never
returned, abandoning Phong and the rest of the family.
“Later in adulthood you have
resentment and anger. We’ve never taken a dime from him in child support.
Vietnamese people don’t know what child support is. My mom has worked pretty
much every damn day of her life since we got here,” Phong said.
Though he spent much of his
childhood getting up before dawn, helping his mother prepare pastries and pick
vegetables from the garden to sell in his uncle’s grocery store, by his teenage
years be began to dabble in the criminal lifestyle.
“There weren’t a lot of father
figures to tell us, ‘No.’ So my brother and I got into some legal problems. I
got kicked out of a lot of schools. … People talk about the things I did at the
gas station. Why do you think I’m so good at that? Because I used to do it!
You’ve got to know the game to play the game,” Phong said.
Phong’s Facebook account is maxed
out at 5,000 friends. Even though his family sold the store over a year ago due
to his mother’s health, he continues to be a local social media star. It’s easy
to see why. If you lose your dog, Phong will spread that post far and wide. If
your truck got stolen last night, he will tell all of Wichita to keep an eye
out. And then there are the videos. He’s posted dozens of security camera
videos of his interactions with shoplifters, drug addicts, drug dealers and the
homeless people that would frequent his store. Some of the videos display
Phong’s sense of humor when dealing with difficult situations. But almost all
of them feature Phong’s willingness to call out criminality on his property.
“When it’s your own store and you
work your ass off and somebody steals from you, it’s kind of personal,” Phong
said.
He marvels at the idea that people
would try to steal from him when they could go down the street to Walmart or
Quiktrip and steal with little consequence. For a corporation, it’s the cost of
doing business, but for a small store like Phong’s, it had a greater impact.
His willingness to confront criminality earned him enemies.
“Most of the new drug dealers
initially do not like me. We are gonna go to street rules
here. You don’t go to another man’s house and deal drugs and slang shit, right?
I tell people all the time. I give everybody a warning. Do not pick up
prostitutes, do not sell drugs, do not do any of that stuff. That’s messing
with my livelihood,” Phong said.
The area around Phong’s store has a
reputation as a place for drugs and prostitution. Phong refers to the
neighborhood as the “white ghetto.” But Phong saw his store as a safe place for
everyone, even the prostitutes who worked Broadway. Their business was welcome only
if they didn’t pick up customers in front of his store. He had zero tolerance
for drama in his parking lot. One video shows Phong coming to the rescue of a
customer being violently assaulted. Phong unholsters his weapon and forces the aggressor
off his property at gunpoint. Loyalty to customers earned Phong and his family
respect in the neighborhood.
“They tended to the needs of
anyone. They would help those in need and if you did them wrong, expect the
Phong to tell ya’ about it,” said 28-year-old former customer John Guajardo.
42-year-old Kimya Harris considered
the store a safe place she could take her children for a treat on their daily
walk.
“The family and I became good
friends and that relationship caused me to become a loyal customer. By the time
they sold the business, my kids knew them well, and like
me, were sad to see them go,” she said.
But if you cussed at Phong, he’d
cuss back. If you got crazy with Phong, he’d get crazier. And if you threatened
Phong, he was prepared to use violence.
“All the videos you saw online of
me beating ass, here’s the thing: If you put your hands on me, I have a right
to defend myself. If you are acting in a manner that I feel like I’m being
threatened, you’re going to get your ass whupped,” he said.
That attitude has earned Phong
criticism from some in the neighborhood.
“I understand him in a way. He
protects his shop to the fullest. The way he does it is what I wouldn’t agree
with. I think he’s even pulled a sword out on someone,” said former customer
Juanta Wolfe, “Just the magnitude in how far he takes it often seems overboard.
That being said, I’ve seen him handle situations in a mature manner. I might
just be too liberal in my thoughts, but I don’t agree with threatening someone
over a pack of M&Ms.”
Yes, the infamous sword. In one
video, Phong is seen using the distinctive sound of a sword dragging across
concrete to drive off a mentally disturbed man.
“In order to combat crazy, you have
to act crazy. … For the most part it’s all a show. Sometimes it takes an
extravagant display,” Phong said.
Three armed robberies in the early
years led Phong, his mother, and brothers to make the decision to carry guns. By
the end, they were armed to the teeth, and everyone knew it. That extravagant
display included a fully automatic M16, which Phong was allowed to own because
of a special license.
“If you defend yourself, would you
rather defend with a regular gun or a badass fully automatic machine gun?”
Phong asked, “Everybody around us in that neighborhood got robbed. Guess who
didn’t get robbed? For 15 years we didn’t get robbed.”
Phong says that he also has a soft
side. He claims that he’d offer thieves a chance to donate to the tip jar to
avoid a call to the police. His mother would send that money back to Vietnam to
help build churches. He asserts he wouldn’t call the cops on children. Instead,
a good scare and calling their parents would suffice.
With his family’s store sold off,
he has grown contemplative. He believes people can change for the better. Phong
says that beatdowns and arrests don’t cause people to change. What makes a
difference is giving thieves a chance to understand they’ve done wrong and
apologize for it.
“You get a lot of life lessons
working in that gas station. You try to give a positive vibe and bring people
up. We need more joy in the world. If a single mother of four boys from a third-world
country can make it, so can you.”
After several
years of working seven days a week from dawn to dark, he’s spending time
reconnecting with old friends. He still lives with his mother. He hesitates to
leave her.
“But what kind of
son would I be if I left?” Phong asks.
