Brandon Tsay has successfully disarmed the shooter in the fatal shooting in Monterey Park near Los Angeles after he managed to kill at least 10 people Saturday night at a California dance hall.
Huu Can Tran, a 72-year-old man of Asian origin, opened fire on Saturday evening during the Lunar New Year celebration at a dance hall in Monterey Park, near Los Angeles, a city populated mainly by people of Asian origin.
He killed at least 10 people and injured 10 other people, then, fleeing, was tracked for several hours by the police. He was eventually found dead behind the wheel of a vehicle. A tragedy that could have been worse if a hero (maybe two) had not intervened.
“His eyes were menacing”
To understand, we must first go back to the course of this evening. Around 10:10 p.m. Saturday (7:10 a.m. Sunday French time), Huu Can Tran entered the popular Star Ballroom Dance Studio in downtown Monterey Park. There, he will kill 10 people.
About 30 minutes after his first attack, he went to another dance hall in Alhambra, a nearby town. He wishes to make more victims but is prevented from doing so, according to New York Timesby Brandon Tsay.
The 26-year-old computer coder, who regularly works at the ticket office of this dance hall, allegedly disarmed the killer before he could shoot anyone.
Brandon Tsay first came face to face with Huu Can Tran, a gun pointed at him. “He looked at me and looked around him, without hiding that he was trying to do harm. His eyes were threatening,” he told reporters the day after the tragedy.
“By his body language, his facial expression, his eyes, he was looking for people,” Brandon Tsay added.
“My heart sank, I knew I was going to die,” he first said to himself. The computer specialist then tries everything for everything, rushing on Huu Can Tran and seizing the weapon by the barrel. They argue for about a minute and a half to control the gun, before Brandon Tsay manages to snatch it away.
“That moment was the primary instinct, he said. Something happened there. I don’t know what got into me.”
“Go ahead, get the hell out of here,” he recalled saying to Huu Can Tran, pointing the gun at him.
He then stayed up all night to help investigators. According to CNN, Brandon Tsay’s action also helped lead authorities directly to the suspect. Indeed, having stolen the weapon from the shooter – a Cobray M11mm semi-automatic designed for 30-round magazines – he allowed the police to trace the name and description of the shooter.
One or two heroes?
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna’s version, however, differs slightly from Brandon Tsay’s. According to him, the killer was “disarmed by two members of the community that[il] consider them heroes because they have saved lives”.
For the Americans, the riddle to solve in priority remains Huu Can Tran. “All avenues are being considered,” Sheriff Robert Luna said on Sunday. In particular, investigators have not yet determined why the victims, five women and five men in their fifties or sixties, had been targeted.
United States President Joe Biden has ordered flags adorning public buildings to be lowered to half-mast until the evening of January 2. It is the deadliest shooting in the country since a gunman killed 21 people in May at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
