Murder Victim's Father Speaks Out

Refugio Suen allegedly trafficked a teenage girl, but her older brother, accused of murdering the young San Francisco native, had no right to play God with his life, Suen's father said Thursday.

"Refugio was a pimp, the girl was a runaway, and her brother wanted to protect her," said 50 year old Jingchen Suen, Refugio's father.

"He should have saved his fate for the judge, but no! He apparently deserves to decide who lives and who dies," he said. "Who are you to play God with another man's life? My son deserved to pay for his crimes but that doesn't mean he deserved to die. You murdered my child. Who gave you the right to murder my child?"

The girl's brother, 24 year old Luke Powell, now faces murder and other charges in what prosecutors are describing as a vigilante execution on January 10.

Prosecutors said Powell, who is being held in lieu of $2 million bail, first tracked and shot at Suen in the Fillmore area on New Years Eve, but his bullets missed.

Then, some days later, just after 2 AM, authorities report that he found Suen again and aimed true.

Prosecutors said Refugio "Fuji" Suen was forcing her and other girls into prostitution.

"I understand the frustration and hurt that Mr. Powell must have felt for his little sister," District Attorney Emma Vega-Sanchez said in a press conference earlier today. "But even so, taking the law into your own hands is unacceptable, as is any violence other than necessary self defense against an imminent and urgent threat."

The man's attorney said he may have had a motive to avenge his sister, but that doesn't prove that he committed murder.

Powell, a plumber with his own small business, was convicted in 2012 of drug dealing and possession. SFPD reports Refugio Suen was a known member of the Jackson Street Boyz street gang.

If Powell was determined to stop Suen from forcing girls into prostitution, so was the slain young man's father.

The elder Suen, a diesel mechanic and handyman, said he tried to use his own experience on the streets to persuade his son to change his ways.

"I understand that's Powell's baby sister. That's what I told Fuji," remembers Suen. "I tried to get him to understand these girls are someone's baby. I tried to crack into what compelled him to keep taking this path when he has me and his mother for support. It makes no sense. I tried to stage an intervention but I was in the middle of getting it set up."

Mr. Suen had been so close to his goal. Being just a few days late in his orchestrated effort to redeem his son is haunting the mourning father.

"I was arranging to have him arrested if the intervention didn't work, I was so close. Fuji and I have nearly gone to fistfights over this. If I knew about that girl he was pimping I would have brought her home myself."

"I feel for that girl," Jingchen Suen said. "I understand her family wants to protect her. But Fuji was no murderer, this is no eye for an eye. Judge my son, hate him for it, but he was no murderer, and you became worse than him when you killed him."