The things that shape us, the paths we follow, the careers we choose can seem almost accidental. But that hardly does justice to a man such as Timothy Vu.

As a 4-year-old, Vu clung to his father’s fishing boat when his family fled the communists in Vietnam. Now 45, he will be sworn in this evening as the highest-ranking Vietnamese police officer in Southern California, perhaps America.

Vu will take the officer’s oath as Westminster’s deputy police chief.

For a community whose heart is in Little Saigon yet stretches past the shores of Texas to the sidewalks of Paris, to the streets of what was once officially called “Saigon,” Vu’s accomplishment is more than inspirational.

The new deputy chief offers a different kind of role model than the ones many Vietnamese American parents present to their children.

While nearly half of Westminster is Asian, less than 10 percent of the police force is Vietnamese. Perhaps it’s only fitting that Vu found his own role models in a very different place than office settings.

It was the 1980s and Vu wanted to follow in the footsteps of Rico Tubbs and Sonny Crockett.

That’s right. Vu didn’t just watch television’s “Miami Vice.”

He wanted to be Miami vice.

FLEEING FOR FREEDOM

People such as Vu never stop achieving. It’s in his DNA. Along with his TV heroes, the new deputy police chief walks in his father’s footsteps.

Both men thrive in the outdoors, taking on new challenges, pushing through adversity.

Making a living as a cop requires managing risk. Around every corner, at every stop, you face the unknown.

Making a living as a fisherman a half-century ago in the South China Sea took the same kind of courage, stamina and fearlessness.

Perhaps even more.

When Saigon fell in April 1975, Vu’s dad herded his family – one that included 11 children as well as various aunts, uncles and cousins – onto his small boat and prayed that everyone would be rescued before pirates attacked.

His power was in perseverance and faith.

Sure enough, a U.S. Navy ship spotted the boat and the family was rescued. After a series of refugee camps, they ended up at Camp Pendleton.

Like thousands of Vietnamese refugees, the Vu family is Catholic, and two Catholic families in Oceanside took them in. Eventually, the family made its way to Long Beach and then to a two-bedroom apartment in Garden Grove.

On a bookcase in his office, Vu glances at photos of his wife and his two daughters, ages 12 and 14, and recalls how different his life was compared to that of his own children.

“We were on top of each other,” Vu says, smiling. “You were on your own. You learned to take care of yourself.”

Vu came home and translated school notes to his parents. Along with studying, he worked paying jobs, first as a 12-year-old Register newspaper boy, then as a stock boy at a discount department store, then frying beans at a fast-food restaurant.

Times were more than tough. When Vu was in the sixth grade, his mother suffered a stroke that left her in bed for years. She never recovered, passing away in January 1988.

Through it all, Vu’s father struggled to return to the sea. Fishing was his only means to make the kind of money he needed to feed his children.

PACKED APARTMENT

As Vu tells his family’s story, the deputy chief is keenly aware he also speaks to the experience of tens of thousands of refugees who make their way to the United States.

The poor come for better lives. Some – like the Vus – flee political persecution.

“For me,” Vu says, “I understand it’s not by choice, but by necessity.”

When Vu responds to a call in a crowded house or apartment, he knows firsthand the pressures, the challenges and the stresses the residents face.

For several years when Vu was in elementary school, he worked side-by-side with his father repairing an old, broken boat. He breathed in fiberglass particles as the family patched the wreck back together. But finally, the family came to realize that their mission was hopeless.

“The boat,” he says, “never saw water.”

“Parents leave with nothing but the shirts on their back,” Vu explains. “The challenge for a lot of folks is their skills don’t translate here.”

His father stayed busy caring for his ailing wife and finding jobs through the church. Now 87, he’s remarried.

In high school, Vu got an internship in the Garden Grove Police Department, worked a bit as a court liaison and came to know district attorney’s investigators. He was in “Miami Vice” heaven.

He earned an associate’s degree in administrative justice, went through the San Diego police academy, worked there as a police officer and was invited to join the Westminster Police Department.

With family, church and his fiancée in the Westminster area, accepting the offer made sense. Looking out over the Civic Center’s tree-lined courtyard, Vu says, “My roots were here.”

He worked his way up from patrol officer to fraud and forgery detective. By 2005, he was a robbery and homicide detective and was charged with solving one of Orange County’s most bizarre murder mysteries: the case of the white-painted fortuneteller.

FORTUNETELLER MURDER

It started with what looked like ritualistic killings – red candles, fortune-telling bric-a-brac, a mother and daughter stabbed multiple times, white paint poured on the bodies.

Soon, Vu and his team uncovered clues. The most telling clue was that someone was using the fortuneteller’s credit card.

At first, nothing made sense. “We kept saying, they can’t be that stupid,” the officer recalls, to use the credit cards. But, as Forrest Gump says, stupid is as stupid does.

Vu and his team tracked down the suspects in North Carolina. Little by little, a wild scenario unfolded.

A woman named Tanya Nelson and a friend, Phillipe Zamora, killed Ha Jade Smith, the 52-year-old fortuneteller, and her 23-year-old daughter, Anita Vo. The motive? A fortune Nelson paid for didn’t come true.

Zamora flipped on Nelson in exchange for a 50-year sentence. A jury found Nelson guilty of murder and she became the second woman in Orange County history to be sentenced to death.

But for Vu, the case went beyond the convictions. He’d cemented relationships with other agencies, people the deputy police chief calls “the finest.”

Along the way Vu received his bachelor’s degree at Cal State Fullerton, was accepted into the FBI’s National Academy, and just last year became the first in his family to earn a master’s degree.

Vu’s journey may seem like a long way from a fishing village thousands of miles away. But for many in the Vietnamese community – and for others – distance means nothing.

Life is about heart.

Contact the writer: dwhiting@ocregister.com