#edwin ang

▲ Edwin Ang in the Bay Area in about 1963. He was the father of David Ang.

On January 5, 1992 a poorly maintained Unification Church Ford van filled with teenagers smashed into the median of the Saw Mill River Parkway just north of Tarrytown, NY. The force of the impact launched the van into the air, landing it on the other side of the road, rolling over and over into oncoming traffic. One teenager died, three were hospitalized with serious injuries; miraculously the rest were largely unharmed.  

This is the story of the events that led up to that accident.

The story begins in two places. The first is a stretch of road just north of the accident site. It was the location of another accident. Here, as legend would have it, Heung Jin Moon was driving two friends to Barrytown and came upon a jack-knifed tractor trailer. Unable to avoid the wreck, he turned the car to the right, thereby exposing himself to the full impact of his car’s collision with the trailer, dying in the process but saving his two friends. He was subsequently anointed a hero, a sacrifice for all the failures of UC members, and a holiday was proclaimed in his honor. But the part left out of the legend was that he was driving at unsafe speeds, effectively racing to Barrytown, and that his speed was the main contributor to his death, not spiritual vindictiveness.

▲ Heung Jin Moon

The second place is in the homes and minds of parents naively assuming that spiritual forces would guarantee the safety of their children. While most of the parents involved were neither bad nor dumb people, they were perplexingly negligent. They faithfully and blindly believed that if their children were with the True Children that they would always be safe. Yet right under their noses patterns of behavior were emerging that would have raised red flags in the minds of any reasonable parent.

Heung Jin’s death did nothing to change the driving habits of the Moon boys. Soon after his brother’s death, Hyo Jin boasted about racing from East Garden to the New Yorker Hotel, a 24 mile trip, in just over 13 minutes (that means his average speed was 110 mph). But the death had one crucial side effect; it catalyzed a return to faith on the part of Hyo Jin, who prior to that had effectively been a street thug more interested in rock stardom than any serious spiritual responsibility. He subsequently started actively meeting with the local area teens, organizing a gang style life experience cloaked in the garb of spiritual guidance and some dysfunctional camaraderie.

Hyo Jin’s wild past had congealed with the innate arrogance of someone brought up as a royal prince into a complete disregard for laws. This was especially the case with traffic laws, which he generally resented and ignored. His newfound faith probably worsened this disregard. He believed that Sons of the Lord of the Second Advent shouldn’t be subject to the menial rules and regulations of the fallen world. Unfortunately, no one told the laws of physics that we were special.

Hyo Jin was the oldest, the toughest and a natural leader. Kids like me, who lived in the area looked up to him, as did his younger brothers like the deceased Hueng Jin. We were his little sycophant army. If he liked certain music, we liked it too (anyone remember Whitesnake?). If he wore certain clothes, we would wear those clothes. If he liked guns and violence, we liked guns and violence. If someone didn’t approve, the same pressures that apply in any street gang were applied. They were berated and beaten up. It was an atmosphere of rigid, fearful conformity and there was no place for weakness or dissent. But most key, if he showed contempt for laws, we did the same. And this is the important one. This is the one that lead us to jeopardize our own safety and that of others.  

Not only that, we were told to do the same as him by none other than our parents. To be fair, if our parents knew half the shit we were up to they probably would have balked. But they were willfully ignorant. And even if they had disapproved, we could point and say “but Hyo Jin does it, and don’t you want me to be more like Hyo Jin?” They would have no answer.

When Hyo Jin took us to the New Yorker Hotel we would weave through heavy traffic in a convoy of cars like characters out of “The Fast and the Furious”. Barrytown trips were no different. It was exciting, wild, and a lot of fun for a teenager. We would routinely top 100 mph on these trips.

Then we would shoot stuff. Sometimes we’d buy animals from pet stores just so we could shoot them.

He was thirty years old at the time but didn’t appear to have lost any of his youthful desire for mayhem. Nor did he seem to have the slightest inclination as to how his influence would set the stage for tragedies to come.

I recall that he did try once to dissuade us from being completely irresponsible on the road. After a particularly hair raising winter trip back from Barrytown on the very icy road that had taken his brother’s life, he told us that we should drive like him only if we knew every inch of the road. Good advice; unless something on the road has changed, like a tractor trailer jack-knifed in your path. But we didn’t listen. And the advice was never repeated, at least not while I was in the room. Nor was anyone else supervising our activities.

Time without incident emboldened our general recklessness, so it should have surprised no one when the wife of one of the “hyung’s”, as we called them – Korean BC’s a bit older than us – phoned with morbid news. I was the one who picked up the phone and translated for the aunt of the deceased. I may as well have taken a gun and shot her. The blood left her face and she lost control of her leg, falling to one side. She tried to speak, but no words came. It was awful.

Two hours earlier the hyungs had organized a trip to see a movie. About twelve kids piled into an old, poorly maintained fundraising van and headed out. It should have taken about fifteen minutes to reach their destination. But the van was peculiar. It had a massive dead zone in the steering and bald tires. The van was in no way fit to be driven at high speed, especially down a dangerous road like the Saw Mill Parkway in mid winter. And the hyung driving was in a crummy mood. He pushed the old van like an angry eighteenth century Russian farmer pushing a mule. He came too quickly upon a curve and lost control.

As the old van rolled over and over the passenger windows shattered and three of the teenagers were thrown out. The van landed on all three. The two survivors endured severe head injuries. One died. His name was David Ang.

During that period there had been little parental inquiry or intervention in any of our activities with the Moons. Never once did I hear questions posed as to whether a bunch of teenagers were mature enough to be so independent, driving each other around at high speeds or playing with guns. Our parents didn’t take the time to get to know each individual “hyung” or any of the idiosyncrasies of the Moon sons. Instead they saw what they wanted to see. They were blinded by their own faith and the consequences were catastrophic.

When I think about what happened it strikes me as incredible that grown adults could ever be so naive. Despite their desire to do good and their educational background (some of the parents were PHD’s), they completely shut down any critical thinking when it came to the Moons. Obvious risks in patterns of behavior were excused or rationalized.  

Why?

They were taught not to question things when it came to the Moons. And like good little lap dogs, they complied.

But here is the really bad part. Was there a public outcry after David’s death? Did anyone even hint that maybe the Moons weren’t teaching us good things? Was there an investigation by parents as to how to prevent anything like that from happening again? Did anything change, at all? Sadly, the answer was no.

Instead there was much wailing, praying and soul searching. People wondered what spiritual conditions may have been unmet that could have lead to the sacrifice of a “blessed child”. They blamed themselves, but for the wrong reasons. Not one person called out the obvious, that David’s death was the direct result of a pattern of behavior that would have been culled by any rational parent.

And no Moon bothered to show up at David’s funeral.

One year after David’s death, Hyo Jin Moon was arrested for driving drunk. Three years after David’s death he was arrested for driving without a license. The Westchester County police had conducted a sting operation: They told over a hundred people with drunk driving convictions that they had to meet with their parole officers. Most arrived on foot, by public transportation, or had a friend drive them. Fifteen people were arrogant or stupid enough to drive to their meeting, even though their licenses were suspended or revoked. Five years later Hyo Jin spent a night in jail for having accumulated too many concurrent traffic related probations.

A former member wrote the following: “I was in N.Y. to visit the ‘True Family’ and slept in their old mansion Belvedere overnight. While there I talked with Moon’s limo driver. He told me that they were required to get him from point A to point B as quickly as possible, and regularly drove over 100 mph to do so. I asked about their driving records (tickets). He said Moon uses a driver until they lose their licenses for speeding and just gets a new driver after that. For this reason there is a large turnover of drivers for him.”

Until next time,

MLP     2010

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2010: Buying Sun Myung Moon a Shiny New Rolls Royce – MLP

2010: Fun with Numbers – MLP

2011: (Not so) Blessed are the Poor (UC members)

Conservative pundit Bret Stephen's father Charles Stephens organized over 100 Moonies in the 70s, including Gary Jarmin, Dan Fefferman, Edwin Ang, etc., under the organization "Youth Committee for Peace with Freedom". They lobbied and protested on behalf of continuing the Vietnam War.