Wah Mee massacre

Wah Mee massacre
The shuttered entrance of the Wah Mee Club (double doors at left), December 2007
Location47°35′53″N 122°19′27″W / 47.59806°N 122.32417°W / 47.59806; -122.32417
665 South King Street Seattle, Washington, U.S.
DateFebruary 19, 1983 (1983-02-19)
c. 12:25 a.m. – c. 12:40 a.m. (PST)
Attack type
Mass shooting, mass murder, armed robbery,
WeaponsThree .22 caliber handguns:
Deaths13
Injured1
Perpetrators
  • Kwan Fai "Willie" Mak
  • Keung Kin "Benjamin" Ng
  • Wai Chiu "Tony" Ng
MotiveRobbery
Wah Mee massacre
Traditional Chinese華美大屠殺
Simplified Chinese华美大屠杀
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinHuáměi dàtúshā
Yue: Cantonese
Jyutpingwaa4 mei5 daai6 tou4 saat3
other Yue
Taishaneseva3 mei4 ai5 hu2 sat3

The Wah Mee massacre was a mass shooting that occurred during the night of February 18–19, 1983, in the Wah Mee gambling club at the Louisa Hotel in Seattle, Washington, United States. Fourteen people were bound, robbed and shot by three gunmen, 22-year-old Kwan Fai "Willie" Mak, 20-year old Keung Kin "Benjamin" Ng and 25-year-old Wai Chiu "Tony" Ng (no relation). Thirteen of the victims died, but 61-year-old Wai Yok Chin, a former U.S. Navy sailor and Pai Gow dealer at the Wah Mee, survived to testify against the three in the separate high-profile trials held between 1983 and 1985.

Mak and Benjamin Ng were both given life imprisonment, after Mak's initial death sentence was overturned in 1988 while Tony Ng received a 30-year sentence, serving 28 years before he was released and deported to his native Hong Kong in 2014. It remains the deadliest mass murder in the history of Washington State.