A 26-year-old man who managed to disarm a gunman who killed 10 people and injured 10 others at a California dance hall on Saturday night told American media on Monday that he “believed he was going to die,” who killed him as “hero”.
• Also read – Everything we know about the Monterey Park killer
• Also read – ‘This country is going crazy’: In California, a Chinatown is in shock after a new massacre
• Also read – California shooting: Suspect found dead by police
The man, identified as Brandon Tsay, was at the Lai Lai Ballroom & Studio in the city of Alhambra – a different ballroom to the one where the carnage took place – on Saturday night when the gunman entered the busy venue, which was frequented mainly by Asians and himself pointed a gun at him.
“My heart stopped, I knew I was going to die,” he told the New York Times, “at that moment it was the instinct to survive” that took over.
Brandon Tsay said he lunged at the man and grabbed the barrel of the gun and began what he described as the “fight of his life”.
The young computer developer, whose grandparents founded the dance hall, was unaware that the gunman, identified by police as Huu Can Tran, killed ten people and injured ten others ten minutes earlier at another facility in a nearby Monterey Park neighborhood would have.
- Listen to Maxime Deland, journalist at the QMI agency, on the microphone of Benoit Dutrizac QUB radio :
CCTV footage released by ABC on Monday shows Brandon Tsay wrestling with the beanie-wearing gunman, the weapon indistinguishable in close quarters combat.
The young employee finally managed to grab it, immediately aimed it at the shooter and yelled “get out of here,” he told media.
He told ABC he was convinced the man didn’t come to rob but to kill.
“He wasn’t there to rob us. As he looked around the room. It looked like he was looking for people to attack,” Mr Tsay said.
The 72-year-old Asian gunman died Sunday in Torrance, about 28 miles from Monterey Park, where the shooting took place, after being surrounded by police.
On Monday, investigators were still looking for a motive for the shooting.