The Rev. Billy Chang was only a dozen steps away from the gunman when gunfire erupted on Sunday, he recalls in a group message.
Some 140 members of the Irvine Taiwan Presbyterian Church, which holds services at the Geneva Presbyterian Church in Laguna Woods, California, had gathered for a luncheon honoring Chang, a beloved former pastor who had just returned from Taiwan.
Chang, 68, described standing at a podium and seeing the gunman “randomly aim at the crowd and shoot,” he said Monday in a message sent to a seminar group on the Line messaging app, shared and verified by NBC Asian America. “At first, I thought it was a toy gun and it was a joke. At that time, I didn’t even know that I should hide.”
Chang ran across the stage, grabbed a chair and threw it at the shooter. When the gunman fell and dropped the gun, Chang and other congregants held him down until police arrived. Chang’s wife, Yu Ling, told the Los Angeles affiliate NBC News that he tossed the gun in the refrigerator and tied the shooter’s legs with an orange electrical cable.
John Cheng, a doctor who helped board the gunman, was fatally shot in the attack. Five people were injured. The heroism of the group of elderly parishioners, authorities say, likely saved dozens of lives.
Southern California’s Taiwanese-American community is reeling after the shooting in the Laguna Woods retirement neighborhood.
The man charged in the attack, David Chou, 68, of Las Vegas, was charged Tuesday with special circumstances murder, which means that if convicted, he could face the death penalty or life in prison without possibility. of probation, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office. He was also charged with five counts of attempted murder and four counts of possession of an explosive device.
Due to the charge of murder under special circumstances, Chou will be held without bail, the prosecutor said. His initial bail amount was $1 million. A public defender for Chou was expected to be appointed at his arraignment on Tuesday.
Orange County police said Monday that the shooting was likely a “politically motivated hate incident” targeting people of Taiwanese descent. Sheriff Don Barnes said at a news conference that “the suspect involved was upset about the political tensions between China and Taiwan” and that he had left notes in his car saying that he did not believe Taiwan should become independent. from China.
While investigators initially identified Chou as a Chinese immigrant, the Taiwanese Central News Agency, citing the head of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles, reported that he was born in Taiwan.
The victims were between 66 and 92 years old; four were seriously injured. The FBI says it has opened a federal hate crime investigation into the shooting.
Peggy Huang, a Yorba Linda council member whose parents belong to the church, said she spoke with church elders who witnessed the shooting to piece together what happened.
Huang said that at the moment he is acting as a mouthpiece for church leaders in the media because they are “overwhelmed, tired and just traumatized.”
“They just want to spend time in prayer right now,” he said. “We are asking for prayers and guidance from the Lord, as only He can get us out of this situation we are facing.”
Huang said none of the congregants recognized Chou, who came in around 10 am for the morning service. They noticed that he was carrying newspapers and had lunch with everyone. Witnesses told Huang that Chou blocked the exits with super glue and iron chains before firing the first shots.
Huang said she was sad and confused to learn of the apparent reason on Monday afternoon, noting that none of the church elders she spoke with had expressed concern about the geopolitical turmoil.
“There have been political tensions between Taiwan and China since the end of World War II,” he said, “but what does that have to do with any of us living in the United States? Here, we are all Americans.”
In the aftermath of the shooting, Eugene Chang, the reverend’s youngest son, worked with other adult children of parishioners to organize a GoFundMe page to raise money for the victims and their families.
Chang, who grew up attending Irvine’s Taiwan Presbyterian Church, said it was not only a space for religious worship, but also a “place of belonging” for the region’s small but close-knit Taiwanese immigrant community.
“It’s hard to find a group of people that you feel so connected to culturally and spiritually,” he said, noting that at services people spoke and worshiped in Taiwanese. “It’s so devastating that everything was removed yesterday.”
Chang said it was “heartbreaking” that the attack targeted the elderly, the grandfathers and grandmothers referred to by younger worshipers as “a-gong” and “āmā.” At the same time, he said, he was not surprised by the heroism they displayed in the face of terror.
“When I heard about my dad and the a-gongs and āmās fighting back, I could picture it so clearly,” he said. “That’s the people they are: people who put their lives on the line for others.”
Reference-www.nbcnews.com