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Biden calls man who disarmed Monterey Park shooter in Alhambra; city honors him with ‘medal of courage’
BY CITY NEWS SERVICE
The man credited with saving an unknown number lives by wrestling a gun away from a mass murderer at an Alhambra dance studio received a phone call Thursday from President Joe Biden, who thanked him for “taking such incredible action.”
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Biden posted a video and audio of the call with Brandon Tsay on his Twitter account.
“I wanted to call to see how you’re doing and thank you for taking such incredible action in the face of danger. I don’t think you understand just how much you’ve done for so many people who are never even going to know you,” Biden told the 26-year-old Tsay. “But I want them to know more about you.”
Tsay repeatedly thanked Biden for the phone call, saying, “For you to call, that’s just so comforting to me.”
He later added, “I appreciate your words of kindness. Thank you, President Biden.”
Biden told Tsay, “You have my respect.”
“You are America, pal. You are who we are,” Biden said. “America’s never backed down. We’ve always stepped up, because of people like you.”
The city announced Tsay would be honored during Sunday’s Lunar New Year Festival in Alhambra. He was scheduled to receive a “medal of courage” from the Alhambra Police Department and other honors during a ceremony planned for 12:30 p.m. Sunday on the festival’s main stage.
Tsay confronted 72-yearold gunman Huu Can Tran when Tran walked into the Lai Lai Ballroom and Studio in Alhambra late Saturday night. Unbeknownst to Tsay at the time, Tran had just shot 20 people — 11 fatally — at a dance studio in Monterey Park less than 20 minutes earlier.
“My first thought was I was going to die here, this is it,” Tsay told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Jan. 23.
Tsay, whose family runs the Lai Lai studio, said the gunman was “looking around the room” as if he was “looking for targets.”
“He started prepping the weapon and something came over me,” Tsay said. “I realized I needed to get the weapon away from him. I needed to take this weapon, disarm him or else everybody would have died.
