Today’s unfortunate booking photo belongs to Brain Ho, 28, of Garden Grove. Santa Ana Police announced on July 16 that he was one of two suspects in the armed robberies of M & Toi Cafe (4702 W. 1st St.) and Dey’s Doughnuts (630 S. Euclid) that took place earlier this month.
“Santa Ana Police Robbery Detectives released video on 7/10/2019, related to two armed robberies that occurred on 7/04/2019, to the media and community members,” states the Santa Ana PD news release. “After the story aired, detectives received information from the community about the identity of Suspect #1 in the media release. Based on the information received, Detectives were able identify Brain Ho as Suspect#1 in both the Santa Ana robberies. Detectives obtained information that Suspect Ho was taken into custody by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department in the City of Huntington Beach on 7/9/2019 on unrelated charges. Suspect Ho was found to be in possession of a firearm similar to that used in the Santa Ana robberies.”
Santa Ana PD is still looking for a second suspect in that case. The suspect is described as being “M/H or Vietnamese, 20-30 yrs old, 5’6”-5’10”, 180 lbs., wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and dark sunglasses. Acted as the lookout. Armed with a black handgun.”
Anyone with information on suspect’s identity is asked to contact SAPD Robbery Detective Duane Greaver at 714-245-8362,
dg******@sa*******.org
or Orange County Crime Stoppers at 1-855-TIP-OCCS.
They also released a clip of video surveillance shot during the M & Toi robbery:
Anthony Pignataro has been a journalist since 1996. He spent a dozen years as Editor of MauiTime, the last alt weekly in Hawaii. He also wrote three trashy novels about Maui, which were published by Event Horizon Press. But he got his start at OC Weekly, and returned to the paper in 2019 as a Staff Writer.