A gang-related mass shooting took place on September 4, 1977, inside the Golden Dragon restaurant at 822 Washington Street in Chinatown, San Francisco, California, United States. The shooting was planned and committed by members of the Joe Boys, a Chinese-American youth gang, who were attempting to kill leaders of the Wah Ching, a rival Chinatown gang. The attack left five people dead and 11 others injured, none of whom were gang members. Seven perpetrators were later convicted and sentenced in connection with the murders. The massacre led to the establishment of the San Francisco Police Department's Asian Gang Task Force, credited with ending gang-related violence in Chinatown by 1983. The restaurant closed in 2006.
Shooting
Motivation The incident was motivated by a longstanding feud between two rival Chinatown gangs, the Joe Boys (Chung Ching Yee) and Wah Ching, tracing back to 1969, when the first victim was killed. The two gangs controlled different parts of San Francisco, with the Wah Ching in Chinatown and the Joe Boys in the Richmond and Sunset districts, and had been rivals since the Joe Boys splintered off from the Wah Ching in the late 1960s. The shooting at the Golden Dragon was an attempted assassination of Wah Ching leaders and was a direct retaliation for the shootout with the Wah Ching in Chinatown's Ping Yuen housing project on July 4, 1977, which was sparked by a dispute over fireworks sales. That shootout resulted in the death of 16-year-old Felix Huey (; sometimes romanized as Huie) and the wounding of Melvin Yu, both members of the Joe Boys.
Huey's murder, in turn, was seen as a reprisal for the earlier death of Kin Chuen Louie, a 20-year-old member of the Wah Ching who had been shot a dozen times on May 31 while attempting to escape in his car. Louie's death was later memorialized in a poem by Michael McClure, who came upon the victim shortly after the shooting. Including those victims in the Golden Dragon, 44 people had been murdered in gang violence in Chinatown by 1977; Inspector John McKenna of the San Francisco Police counted 55 dead between 1969 and 1977.
Planning The raid was planned in a Daly City apartment. Preparations began in early 1977 when Joe Boys members began acquiring the weapons that would be used in the shooting; during the summer of 1977, Tom Yu, a leader of the Joe Boys, convinced a longtime friend who owned a home in Pacifica to store the weapons, wrapped in cloth, in the front closet of that home. On August 29, 1977, Yu met with Carlos Jon, a member of another gang. Yu asked Jon to keep track of Wah Ching and allied Hop Sing Tong gang members over the upcoming Labor Day weekend, showing special interest in where they gathered late at night. The conspirators decided to target the Golden Dragon () because it was a favorite hangout of both the Wah Ching and Hop Sing Tong. The planned raid would also financially damage Jack Lee, a Hop Sing elder who co-owned the restaurant.
Yu gave Jon the phone number of the Pacifica home and asked him to call on the following Saturday, September 3. That Friday night, September 2, members of the Joe Boys gathered in Pacifica, retrieved the weapons and put them on display. Yu received a phone call at 1:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, and after a brief, private conversation, ordered the weapons to be put back into the closet. By this time, the group plotting the shooting consisted of Tom Yu, his brothers Chester and Dana, Melvin Yu (no relation), Peter Ng, Peter Cheung, Curtis Tam, Kam Lee, and Don Wong.
Later that evening, the gang returned to Pacifica. Around 9:30 p.m., two members of the Joe Boys, Peter Cheung and Dana Yu, were asked to steal a four-door car, which would facilitate entry and exit for a quick getaway; they returned shortly afterward with a blue Dodge Dart and parked it in the home's driveway. The gang members retrieved the guns from the closet after the homeowners returned and went to sleep. At 2:00 a.m., Pacific Daylight Time on Sunday, September 4, Tom Yu received a phone call from Carlos Jon that members of the rival Wah Ching gang, including Michael "Hot Dog" Louie, one of its leaders, were present at the Golden Dragon restaurant in San Francisco's Chinatown.
Chester Yu drove a group of four Joe Boys (himself, Curtis Tam, Melvin Yu, and Peter Ng) to the Golden Dragon using the stolen Dodge. Forty minutes later, at 2:40 a.m., Chester Yu parked the stolen car near the Golden Dragon and stayed in the driver's seat while the others went to the restaurant. Armed with a .45-caliber Commando Mark III rifle (a modern clone of the Thompson submachine gun), two 12 gauge pump-action shotguns, and a .38-caliber revolver, the other three donned nylon stocking masks and entered the restaurant from the second entrance at 818 Washington, looking for members of the Wah Ching. During the trial of Curtis Tam, Chester Yu testified that Tam was wielding a shortened shotgun, Ng had a long-barreled shotgun and a handgun, and Melvin Yu was using the rifle. A crowd estimated at between 50 and more than 100 people, many of whom were tourists, were present at the restaurant at the time of the shooting.
At the Golden Dragon According to Chester Yu, Ng had instructed Tam to fire a shot at the ceiling first so that "when the people panic and get down on the floor, we will decide who to shoot." Instead, without warning, the three randomly opened fire on the patrons inside the crowded restaurant, killing five people, including two tourists, and wounding 11 others, none of whom were gang members. In Tam's confession, he stated he had been forced to join the shooting and deliberately did not target any patrons; after he "heard Melvin start shooting, then Peter. I fired my first shot at the sofa. The second I aimed where nobody was." Testimony at Melvin Yu's trial showed he was the first to open fire, using the rifle.
Melvin Yu walked directly up to a man at a table and shot him nine times, continuing to shoot after that victim had fallen to the floor. Melvin Yu then redirected his automatic rifle and shot randomly into the crowd, accompanied by two shotgun blasts from the other gunmen. The first victim, later identified as Paul Wada, a visiting law student, may have been misidentified as a gang sympathizer. An initial news report incorrectly identified some shooting victims as "highly placed" gang members.
The intended targets, the leadership of the Wah Ching and Hop Sing, were sitting at a table at the back of the restaurant. They were not injured in the shooting. Up to 10 members of the Wah Ching, including their leader, Michael Louie, ducked under tables during the gunfire. They had been alerted by a friend who spotted the three gunmen running toward the restaurant from a front-facing window and shouted "Man with a gun!" in Cantonese and English. Triad member Raymond Kwok Chow, then 17 years old and a member of the allied Hop Sing Tong, who would later achieve considerable notoriety, was among those who survived the attack.
The shooting lasted less than 60 seconds. Police later called it the worst mass murder in San Francisco history.
Comedians Philip Proctor and Peter Bergman of the Firesign Theatre were eating at the Golden Dragon during the shooting, after performing a Proctor and Bergman show at the Great American Music Hall. When Bergman, an Army veteran, realized the perpetrators had emptied their weapons, he rose from cover in time to see their faces as they exited. He later testified in their conviction.
Two off-duty armed police officers were also dining at the Golden Dragon during the attack. James Bonanno, a restaurant patrolman, dove for cover when the gunmen entered; he later testified that he pulled his revolver and radioed for help while hiding. Once the shooting stopped, after 30 to 45 seconds, he emerged and began to help the wounded diners. Richard Hargens (or Harkins) also fell to the floor after hearing shots and though he drew his revolver, he stated other people were in his line of fire and he was unable to shoot the gunmen. Neither officer was able to identify the gunmen beyond describing them as "young Orientals".
Cleaning up
Chester Yu drove the shooters back to the house in Pacifica after the shooting, and the weapons were returned to the closet. After their return, the Joe Boys stayed awake until dawn discussing the shooting, then slept for a few hours before awakening to listen to the news of the killing. They dispatched Tony Chun-Ho Szeto, another Joe Boy, to pick up noodles from the Golden Dragon for breakfast. Later that morning, the perpetrators retrieved the weapons from the closet, cut them into pieces in the garage, and asked Szeto to dump the pieces into San Francisco Bay. Szeto drove Chester Yu to a location within sight of Kee Joon's, a Burlingame restaurant where Szeto worked, and together they dumped the parts into the Bay near San Francisco International Airport. A week after the shooting, Tom Yu called Carlos Jon for the last time, asking Jon to "keep cool."
Victims The five victims fatally shot at the restaurant were later identified as: Calvin M. Fong (), 18, a graduate of Archbishop Riordan High School Donald Kwan (), 20, a graduate of Abraham Lincoln High School Denise Louie (), 21, an urban planning student at the University of Washington Paul Wada (), 25, a law student at the University of San Francisco Fong Wong (), 48, an immigrant from Hong Kong working as a server at the Golden Dragon
Aftermath One week after the shooting, two Joe Boys were shot by suspected Wah Ching gunmen, leaving one dead and the other critically wounded, in what police called a revenge-motivated shooting. Michael Lee, 18, was killed, and Lo "Mark" Chan, 19, was wounded critically during the ambush at the entryway of Chan's Richmond district home.
Chinatown, one of the leading tourist destinations in San Francisco, suffered after the shooting. Nighttime dining in Chinatown was depressed, as restaurant reservations were cancelled en masse following the shooting. Although the Golden Dragon reopened just seven hours after the shooting, it closed as early as 10 p.m. in the week following a drop in patronage; normally it would stay open until 3 a.m. Business and tourist traffic remained depressed for several weeks following the shootings, although other businesses stated the rising cost of labor in Chinatown was to blame for increased prices and decreased patronage. By December, business at the Golden Dragon remained down and police had still not made any arrests, although by that time Michael Louie, the reported target that night, had been arrested for his suspected involvement with the 1976 murder of Kit Mun Louie (no relation), an 18-year-old immigrant from Hong Kong.
Investigation
The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) announced they were close to solving the crime soon after the shooting, but Chief Charles Gain criticized the Chinatown community for its silence and "abdication of responsibility" due to "the subculture of fear" of gang reprisals. SFPD Lieutenant Daniel Murphy, head of the investigation, said, "because so many innocent people were killed and injured, this time we have been getting more cooperation out of the residents and witnesses in Chinatown than we normally do." Chinatown residents came forward to provide tips in the days following the shooting, identifying that Wah Ching diners and Joe Boys assailants were present that night.