The Golden Dragon Restaurant Massacre

The Golden Dragon restaurant on Washington Street was the scene of an attack in 1977 that killed five and wounded eleven people.

Dare to eat where tourists were ruthlessly slaughtered by Chinatown gangsters. 816/833 Washington.

On September 4th, 1977, the 100-odd diners at the Golden Dragon restaurant were in for a rude surprise. Three ski-masked juveniles carrying a shotgun, a semiautomatic rifle and a revolver entered the restaurant and sprayed it with bullets, killing five diners and wounding eleven others.

The massacre stunned San Francisco. Headlines splattered the story across the nation, and tourists stayed away from Chinatown in droves. Frustrated by the difficulty of solving the crime, Police Chief Charles Gain blamed the Chinese-American community, calling it a “subculture of fear” and saying that there was a conspiracy of silence and near-total lack of witnesses in Chinatown.

Gain's remarks angered Chinese-American leaders, who pointed out that two armed, off-duty policemen were in the Golden Dragon during the shooting. The two cops ducked under nearby tables, neglected to return fire, and emerged unscathed.

A week after the shooting, Washington Post writer Lou Cannon found the Golden Dragon almost empty; the few diners in evidence were almost all Caucasian. “The only persons at the bar were a Coors-drinking couple who were attempting to convince the Chinese-American bartender that Orientals are a highly superstitious people,” Gains reported.

Despite their slow start, the police eventually solved the case. The killers were members of a youth gang known as the “Joe Boys,” followers of then-imprisoned gang leader Joe Fong. Their attack on the Golden Dragon was a strike against the rival youth gang Wah Ching (young Chinese); they were supposedly hoping to kill Wah Ching gang member Michael Louie. If that was their aim, it misfired, for Louie and other Wah Ching members dove under tables and escaped injury; the only victims were innocent bystanders. Another theory holds that the killers just wanted to mess up the Golden Dragon, which was then known as a Wah Ching hangout.

Gunmen Peter Ng, Melvin Yu, and Curtis Tam were eventually charged and convicted in the slayings. Tom Yu, the ringleader who had ordered the attack, was convicted of five counts of conspiracy to commit first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Tourism in Chinatown never fully recovered from the Golden Dragon massacre. Before the incident, there were about 30 gambling houses in Chinatown, along with countless nightclubs and restaurants that stayed open till 4 a.m. After the incident, some gambling dens shut down, while night spots began closing at 11 p.m. Even in the 1990's, old-timers say, Chinatown night life isn't what it used to be.

--Dr. Weirde

Contributors to this page include:

Carlsson,Chris - Photographer-Artist

Weirde,Dr. - Writer

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