North Quincy resident Brian Kenney stood before the court on December 14 and received his sentence for assaulting, robbing, and hospitalizing Vietnam War veteran Liem Tran over a year ago. Kenney, 35, pleaded guilty to the crime earlier this year and was initially charged along with his wife, Angelina Kenney, 39, in March of last year. He was sentenced to three to five years in prison, along with three years of probation thereafter. During that probationary period Kenney will have to submit to random drug testing and must stay away from Tran, who is still in recovery and forever living with the effects of Kenney’s assault.
Tran was one of two victims of robberies Kenney committed on February 18, 2021, the other victim also being Asian American. Tran, then 69 years old, was attacked first while he was walking toward the North Quincy MBTA station in the early morning. Kenney assaulted and robbed him at 4:45 am. The second robbery was committed against a 55-year-old Asian American woman on the same street at 10 pm that night. Kenney fled on foot afterward and was subsequently chased by two witnesses, who captured cellphone footage that led to his arrest a month later. Along with Kenney’s recent sentencing and jail time is the order to pay restitution to the Tran family, who, shortly after the incident, began a GoFundMe page to help with hospital expenses.
Tran, the war veteran and Vietnamese refugee who moved to Quincy in the 1980s, suffered damage to his spinal cord and a serious head wound. He required immediate surgery and is still in physical therapy for his injuries. Though the family and Tran sought the identification of the incident as a hate crime, Kenney was never charged. In a statement with the aid of a translator, Tran said, “I believe the added element of violence is because of anti-Asian hate.” There has been some debate as to the motive of this crime, especially in light of recent violent crimes in Quincy also with Asian American victims, but police have not found enough evidence to deem this a hate crime.
There are certain criteria followed in these investigations set forth by departments like the FBI and the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP). The IACP defines a hate crime as “a crime in which the defendant intentionally selects a victim…in whole or in part because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, disability, or sexual orientation of any person.” Investigators look for signs of hate through physical and digital evidence. Texts, emails, websites, and social media posts are studied, anything that can lead to the conclusion that the perpetrator of the suspected hate crime had bias toward that race.
Verbal evidence showing that the perpetrator used offensive language or racial slurs against the victim is also considered. These instances of language are most effective when the victim speaks the same language as their perpetrator. Another violent crime committed just last month, involving the kidnapping and sexual assault of an elderly Asian American woman, was difficult to deem a hate crime because of a language barrier, as the victim did not speak enough English to say whether or not racial slurs were used. In the case of Liem Tran, no such language was reported either, nor was any evidence found to satisfy the above criteria. Police stated, “there is no indication that these incidents were motivated by hate. Rather, they were crimes of opportunity and theft was the motivating factor.”
Dr. Peter Nien-chu Kiang, UMass Professor and Director of the Asian American Studies Program, along with 24 others from the program, attended the sentencing of Brian Kenney in remembrance of another brutal crime from 1983. He spoke to us about why he felt it was important to seek justice for Liem Tran. “It is so important to remember that case from 1983,” Dr. Kiang wrote, “when Anh Mai, a 24-year-old Vietnamese refugee, was brutally stabbed to death outside his home in Dorchester by a white, 19-year-old Marine…No civil rights or hate crimes charges were filed or prosecuted in that case, although the number of incidents of anti-Asian violence in metro Boston at that time was even greater than during the COVID-19 anti-Asian hate pandemic period.”
Kiang was concerned with justice and compensation for Tran and his family. He explained, “We wanted serious prison time for Kenney and maximum financial restitution for Liem Tran and his family. Again, like the Anh Mai case, rigorous sentencing is key…especially when no hate crimes charges have been pursued.” While police could find no connection between Tran and the second victim to justify the motive was one of race, Dr. Kiang posed questions as to other motivators for the crime. “Given his own residence in the North Quincy area, how had he interacted with the large Asian immigrant population living nearby in the past? Were any Asian American local residents familiar with him from prior interactions? Was he influenced or inspired by the wave of anti-Asian attacks against elders that were widely publicized by television, newspapers, and social media in early 2021?”
Dr. Kiang is not the only one to think that criminals may be influenced by past anti-Asian crimes. When referencing some of the recent crimes in Quincy, both hate crimes and those being investigated as such, doctoral student and UMass instructor Kim Soun Ty stated, “When anti-Asian ideas are in the popular consciousness, it manifests actions.” Dr. Kiang notes not just the focus on Asian Americans, but on Asian American elders and the troubles they have been facing. “Though not charged or prosecuted as a hate crime, the assault and injury to Tran represents one of the most serious, violent attacks against an Asian American elder in metro Boston during the current dual-pandemic period of COVID-19 and anti-Asian hate,” he said. “The sheer number and graphic details of recent anti-Asian incidents nationally – especially those targeting immigrant elders – have been widely documented and rightly condemned.”
Dr. Kiang is seeking long-term solutions to anti-Asian hate. He continues to follow the Kenney case and to seek justice in other recent cases in Quincy, like the kidnapping of an elderly woman in Wollaston, allegedly committed by 26-year-old Christian Lynch, and the case of an Asian man who was hit by a car and pushed into a ditch, a crime allegedly committed by 77-year-old John Sullivan. Dr. Kiang commented, “We will definitely continue to follow the unresolved sentencing issue of Kenney’s financial restitution owed to the family, and advocate for as full a settlement as possible while recognizing that no dollar amount can adequately compensate the family for their continuing pain and multiple losses caused by Kenney’s attack.” With respect to his own goals in activism, he turns back to how he can influence others. Dr. Kiang stated, “Over the longer term, as an Asian American Studies academic unit of the public university, we will take great responsibility and care to continue teaching in our courses about the causes and consequences of anti-Asian violence, nationally and locally, including the critical lessons from demanding justice for Anh Mai and others in the 1980s and for Liem Tran and others in the 2020s.” Dr. Kiang calls for action for the others that are still seeking justice in the Christian Lynch and John Sullivan cases. As of now, neither of these cases has been classified as a hate crime.
