Monterey Park Shooting Witnesses Describe Chaos And How The Suspect Was Disarmed

On the eve of Lunar New Year, a shooter opened fire on Star Ballroom Dance Studio in the majority–Asian American city of Monterey Park, California, killing 10 people and injuring 10 more.

The death toll could have been much higher if not for the actions of a 26-year-old man at a second dance studio in nearby Alhambra, where the suspect traveled after the shooting at Star Ballroom.

Brandon Tsay, whose family owns Lai Lai Ballroom & Studio, disarmed the shooter by lunging at him and grabbing the semiautomatic weapon off his hands when he entered the building.

In an interview with Good Morning America, Tsay said he was watching the dancers in the ballroom when he heard the front door closing and the sound of metal clinking together as the suspect reloaded his weapon.

Tsay turned around and saw the shooter. “My first thought was I was gonna die here,” he said.

“Something came over me. I realized I needed to get the weapon away from him,” he told GMA. “I needed to take this weapon, disarm him, or else everybody would have died.”

The way the suspect looked and the weapon he was holding made Tsay believe that he was searching for targets, Tsay told the New York Times.

“How it was built and customized, I knew it wasn’t for robbing money,” Tsay said of the weapon. “From his body language, his facial expression, his eyes, he was looking for people.”

He lunged at the shooter and grabbed the weapon, and surveillance video shows a violent struggle between them ensued. Tsay told GMA that the suspect hit him across his face and on the back of his head, but he managed to wrest the weapon from the shooter and point it at him.

Tsay thought the man would flee, but he stood there “contemplating whether to fight or to run away,” he said.

“I really thought I would have to shoot him if he came at me,” Tsay said. “This is when he turned around and walked out the door.”

Police said two men helped disarm the shooter, but surveillance video shows Tsay struggling with the suspect alone. The identity of the second person police referred to is unclear.

A computer coder who works at Lai Lai’s ticketing desk several days a week, Tsay said he was shocked by the confrontation.

“I was shaking all night. I couldn’t believe what happened,” he said. “After waking up, I noticed there was bruising over my body. My face has a bruise across the nose, and the back of my head has some bruising.”