Man Who Shot 2-Year-Old, Self Should Have Been Deported

BUFORD, GA -- Thy Anh Ho had a criminal history that involved sexual assault and gang activity. But he wasn’t deported to his native Vietnam because that country and France declined to provide the proper paperwork, the Gwinnett Daily Post reports.

Wednesday morning, Ho shot and killed his 2-year-old son, Phillip Nguyen, then himself, after a 19-hour standoff with police in a Buford home.

The incident began with a domestic dispute between Ho and his girlfriend, the baby’s mother.

Officials confirmed to the Daily Post that Ho, 43, should have been deported in 2009 after serving 10 years in an Indiana prison for convictions that included criminal confinement, armed robbery and gang activity.

But, the paper reported, Vietnamese and French authorities declined to provide the necessary travel documents. Ho was released on Sept. 10, 2009, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Ho’s run-ins with the law didn’t end when he moved to Norcross some time in or before January 2010.

On March 31, 2010, he and another man were accused of beating and robbing a pedestrian near Hong Kong Supermarket on Jimmy Carter Boulevard. An expensive diamond ring was stolen in that robbery. Ho was found wearing it weeks later.

He pleaded down from robbery to theft by receiving in that case, the Post reports. After serving nearly two years in Gwinnett County Jail, he was released on February 13, 2012.

Records show that ICE and the Indiana Department of Corrections wanted him at that time. It’s unclear how he was released, apparently, into his own custody.

Ho was arrested again on May 2, 2014 on a hold from the Indiana prison system. Gwinnett Police also say they responded four times to 1870 Beyers Landing Dr., the address where he holed up Tuesday night and Wednesday after threatening to kill his entire family and himself.

None of those visits resulted in arrests.

This whole time, he was being monitored by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But, legally, ICE wasn’t allowed to detain him.

“ICE makes every possible effort to remove all final-order aliens within a reasonable period, which the Supreme Court has determined is 180 days,” spokesman Bryan D. Cox said in an emailed statement to the Daily Post. “After that period, if the actual removal cannot occur within the reasonably foreseeable future, ICE must release the alien.”

Ho last reported to ICE on March 17, 2015, as was required under terms of his release.