By Associated Press
After Richard Labbe allegedly killed his neighbor Thung Phetakoune, he told police: “Those Asians killed my brother and uncle in Vietnam, call it payback time. If you’re not going to do anything about these Asians in my country, then I will.”
Earlier this month, a Rockingham County, N.H. grand jury charged Labbe, a 35-year-old resident of Newmarket, N.J. with second-degree murder and hate crime.
In response to the indictment, Labbe’s lawyer, Public Defender Joseph Welsh, said he’s concerned the charges were motivated by pressure from Asian Pacific Islander American advocates, not facts. APIA groups had urged Attorney General Philip McLaughlin to prosecute the case as a hate crime.
Welsh said his client would plead innocent at his arraignment in Rockingham County Superior Court. He is being held on $300,000 bail.
According to police, on July 14 Phetakoune had tried to break up an argument between Labbe and Sam Chan, another neighbor who had delivered an eviction notice to Labbe from the building landlord.
“So you like to kill Americans, why don’t you try to kill me?” Labbe’s teen-age son told police he heard his father yell.
Labbe claims Phetakoune hit him in the face, after which he pushed the Laotian American. The victim struck his head on the ground and died two days later on July 16.
That, Welsh said, is not murder and not a hate crime.
Though police records back Welsh’s statement, they also reported Labbe made racial comments before and after the incident.
The case marks the first time the state has charged anyone under the hate crime statute in a murder case, authorities said. The law was enacted in 1990.
A hate crime in New Hampshire is defined as a crime motivated by the race, national origin, sexual orientation or gender of the victim.
According to a police affidavit, Labbe was drunk and on cocaine at the time of the incident.
The affidavit says Labbe told police his attack was “payback” for his losing relatives in Vietnam. His father later said Labbe lost no relatives in that war.
Ironically, Phetakoune was forced from his homeland in the 1970s because he had fought on the American side in the war, said Fong Thiphanh, a family friend.
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