Video has been released showing the moment 26-year-old computer coder Brandon Tsay fought hand-to-hand with 72-year-old Huu Can Tran, the gunman who killed 11 in Monterey Park, California over the weekend. Tsay’s heroic actions likely prevented a second mass shooting.
According to The New York Times, Tsay says he was helping out at the ticket office at the family-operated Lai Lai Ballroom & Studio when the incident occurred Saturday night.
Tsay claims he was planning to close up in less than 30 minutes and only three dancers were still on the floor when he heard someone come through the front doors of the building.
Tsay said he remembers hearing what sounded like two metal objects colliding against one another and then turned around to see a man pointing a handgun at him. He told the New York Times, “My heart sank, I knew I was going to die.”
The Times reported that Tsay had no idea the same gunman had just shot nearly two dozen people.
He told the New York Times, “He was looking at me and looking around, not hiding that he was trying to do harm.”
“His eyes were menacing,” he added.
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A security camera in the ballroom lobby then shows the moment Tsay lunged and grabbed the gunman’s gun by the barrel and began a struggle with him. Tsay was then able to wrestle the gun out of Tran’s possession before ordering the gunman out of the dancehall.
“That moment, it was primal instinct,” Tsay said. “Something happened there. I don’t know what came over me.”
He recalled screaming to the gunman, “Go! Get the hell out of here.”
Witnesses told authorities the gunman fled the scene in a white van after Tsay disarmed him.
According to KABC, the Torrance Police Department (TPD) conducted a traffic stop on the van on Sunday at approximately 10:20 a.m.
Authorities said the driver then pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall near Hawthorne Boulevard and Sepulveda Boulevard just before police heard a single gunshot coming from inside the van.
According to the Los Angeles Times, tactical units responded to the scene and found Tran unresponsive inside the vehicle.
Tran was pronounced dead at the scene from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
