His sister Brenda, who now runs the business, said the video showed a prolonged and violent struggle between the two men across the hall.
“He kept coming towards him and he really wanted to get the gun back,” she said of the shooter.
Young Mr Tsay, a computer coder who runs the ticket office several days a week at the dance hall his grandparents started, said he didn’t recognize him when he turned to face the shooter at about 10.35pm on Saturday night . He said he had never seen a real gun before but could tell it was a deadly weapon.
“My heart sank and I knew I was dying,” he said.
The next moment, he lunged to grab the barrel and began wrestling the shooter for control of the gun.
“At that moment, it was primal instinct,” he said. “Something happened there. I don’t know what happened to me.”
They fought for about a minute and a half for control of the gun, and it feels like they’re about equal, sir. Tsai said. At one point, the shooter looked down at the weapon and took one hand away from it as if to maneuver the gun to begin firing. gentlemen. Tsay said he seized the opportunity to push the pistol away from the man.
He pointed the weapon at himself and yelled: “Go, get out of here,” he recalled.
gentlemen. Tsay, who stayed up all night to assist police with the investigation, said he was traumatized and unable to fully process what he had been through. He said his heart breaks especially for the Monterey Park community and surrounding area, which his family and their ballroom have become a beloved haven for the past 30 years.
His sister said that “Lai Lai” was his grandmother’s name, which means “come and come” in Chinese. He said the attacker, dressed in black, looked like he could easily be one of their regulars.
“We have such a close-knit community of dancers,” he said. “It feels so horrible for something like this to happen, for one of us to try to hurt someone else.”
Sean Hubler Contribution report.