At a time when relations between his department and the Vietnamese community are seriously strained, San Jose police Chief Rob Davis announced Friday that he has chosen a Vietnamese-American as one of his four deputy chiefs.

The appointment of Capt. Phan S. Ngo, who as a child was airlifted out of Saigon during the last days of the Vietnam War, is historic. He is not only the first Vietnamese American to serve as a deputy chief in San Jose, but he is believed to be the highest-ranking Vietnamese-American officer on any major U.S. police department.

His selection also comes at a time when some in San Jose's sizable Vietnamese population distrust the police because of two cases — the police shooting of a mentally-ill Daniel Pham in the backyard of his home, and the violent, videotaped arrest of San Jose State University student Phuong Ho. Ngo also becomes the only nonwhite member of Davis' top command staff, filling a job that has been open for months.

"I am very honored and very humbled," said Ngo, 43, as he watched his son's elementary school basketball game an hour after he learned of his promotion to deputy chief in charge of the Bureau of Technical Services. He said one of his first calls after being promoted was to his aunt and uncle, who raised him after they landed in an Arkansas military base in 1975. They were, he said, "ecstatic." His father, a soldier in the South Vietnamese army, died in combat before he was born.

Chuck Reed emphasized the promotion's inspirational value:

"I think it's great to see a Vietnamese-American working his way up the ranks and I hope it will inspire a whole generation of young Vietnamese into law enforcement."

Davis was Ngo's sergeant when the young officer joined the force in 1989, and the chief said he had long been impressed with his intelligence, energy and commitment.

"I picked him for his loyalty to the organization, his loyalty to the community and his loyalty to what our mission is," Davis said. "He gets the big picture of what we are trying to accomplish."

The chief cited Ngo's years of commitment and excellence, specifically his abilities in commanding the city's downtown division as it undergoes reorganization and reform.

Davis said Ngo's ethnicity was "an additional asset," but said it was not the overriding reason why he picked him.

And with the promotion, San Jose Police Department ceased to be a major police department with an all-white, all-male command staff. The San Francisco police Chief George Gascon is a Cuban-American and Deputy Chief David Shinn is Korean-American. Oakland police Chief Anthony Batts is African-American, as is his assistant chief. One of Sacramento's deputy chiefs is a Chinese-American. The Santa Clara County sheriff is a woman, Laurie Smith; her undersheriff is John Hirokawa, a Japanese-American.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimated that there were about 90,000 Vietnamese living in San Jose in 2008 — more than any American city.

Ngo has served in a wide variety of assignments from patrol to detective to supervisory stints with the department's gang and Internal Affairs units. He was promoted to captain in early 2008 and serves as the Central Division commander.

There are about 40 Vietnamese-American officers in the San Jose Police Department, making up 2.8 percent of the force, according to department officials.

Law enforcement and community reaction to Ngo's promotion was mostly positive.

"Fantastic news," said John Lee, president of the National Association of Asian-American law Enforcement Commanders. "Asians have long been underrepresented."

Lee, the resident agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in San Francisco, said Ngo was the highest ranking Vietnamese-American law enforcement officer in the U.S.

"This is history for us, and for the Vietnamese community, it is about time that this happened," Lee added.

Paul Loc Le, an activist with the Viet-American Voters of Northern California, also praised the promotion, saying Ngo can be a plus for the department and help create more opportunities for minorities.

A frequent critic of police practices in San Jose, Richard Konda, president of the Asian Law Alliance, was somewhat more circumspect about the promotion.

"It's a small step in the right direction. I still think there are a lot of problems between the community and the department around a lack of trust," Konda said.