Willie Mak's plan had once seemed foolproof; now it seemed a farce. The whole plot had unraveled, and so Mak and Benjamin Ng sat in custody. When the three men left the Club, Mak and Benjamin Ng assumed they had killed all the victims. As it turned out, many of the victims were alive, but unconscious, for nearly twenty minutes. John Loui didn't die until he reached Harborview Medical Center and, of course, Wai Chin was still alive and undergoing a surgery that would prove life saving.

And the ironies surrounding the killings were many. On February 19, 1942 -- forty-one years to the day of the Wah Mee slayings -- President Roosevelt issued an Executive Order that sent Japanese Americans to internment camps; the mass slayings at a Chinese gambling club occurred on an anniversary of the Japanese Doomsday.

Moreover, Chin's relationship with his killers proved ironic. Willie Mak and Benjamin Ng were acquaintances of Chin. Chin had provided gambling jobs for both young men and the three often dined together before gambling started for the night at the Wah Mee Club; Chin had even hired the two to work as security persons at another Chinatown gambling club. Chin, moreover, knew Benjamin Ng's father.

The killings occurred on the sixth day of the Chinese New Year. It was the year of the pig -- the last of the twelve-year/twelve-animal cycle -- and, quite possibly to the young men who entered the Club, the senior, prominent, wealthy Chinese citizens they had slaughtered very well represented pigs. In rural Chinese villages, it is a tradition to slaughter a pig and, later, the residents of the village would wipe the blood on their faces and hands. Later, a tree is planted to represent starting anew. What Mak and Ng did at the Club was symbolic of the events surrounding the Chinese New Year. They killed the old members of the community, the "pigs" who represented the eldest and last of the Chinese Americans in Chinatown, and started anew with young blood -- planting their own "tree" so to speak. And they walked away from the incident with blood on their hands.

The slayings at the Club rivaled no other in Seattle history. Indeed, the Wah Mee carnage is comparable to that of other American mass murders. In 1929 seven members of the George "Bugs" Moran gang were lined up against a garage wall in Chicago and gunned down by members of Al Capone's gang. This event went down in history as the "St. Valentine's Day Massacre." On August 1, 1966, Charles J. Whitman killed his wife and mother before perching himself inside a tower at the University of Texas and killing twelve others. Prior to the Wah Mee killings, Washington state's worst case of mass murder occurred on March 28, 1934, when six victims were stabbed, bludgeoned, and shot to death in what was known as the "Bremerton Mass Murders."

The morning following the massacre was busy. Twelve bodies were carried out of the Club and loaded into coroner vans. Autopsies began a few hours later. The King County Medical Examiner's office worked seventeen-hour shifts trying to identify the victims as quickly as possible. According to the Medical Examiner's report, all of the victims died of head wounds. Three were shot once, nine were shot twice, and another was shot three times. Throughout the morning and into the afternoon, family members of the deceased filed in and out of the Medical Examiner's office to positively identify the victims. Later that day, the victims' identities were released to the media.

The victims included:

John Loui, 48, the former restaurant owner who had aspirations of opening a lucrative import/export business in Chinatown.

Moo Min Mar, 52, and his wife, Jean, 47, the philanthropic couple who were raising money to build a new school in their native Chinese village. A daughter and two sons survived them.

Chong L. Chin, in his late-fifties when he died, was a Legionnaire and member of Cathay Post 186. He once worked as a cook at The Chopsticks restaurant in Edmonds and Joe's Cafe in Burien. His wife and children survived him.

Henning Chin, 52, was employed as the doorman at the Wah Mee Club and lived nearby in Canton Alley. He was a handyman, carpenter, and plumber who helped with part of the construction of the Chong Wah Benevolent Association shortly before World War II. His wife and children survived him.

Lung Wing Chin, 60, was a former cook and avid fisherman, who was survived by a brother in New York and a wife and son in Hong Kong.

Hung Fat Gee, 51, was once employed at the Gallery Garden Restaurant in Pioneer Square. He was described by a spokesman of the restaurant as being "a happy guy, well-liked, who liked to gamble in his free time."

Chinn Lee Law, 51, owned an auto repair garage in Chinatown. He grew up in Indonesia, moved to China and Hong Kong, and emigrated to the United States. Prior to his death, he had married a woman in Hong Kong and was planning to bring her to Seattle. A sister in Hong Kong survived him.

Dewey Mar, 68, the revered and respected projectionist at the Kokusai Theatre who was the first to bring Chinese movies to Chinatown. Mar was a prominent figure in the Chinese community, having served as president of the Mar Society, and as a member of the Senior Citizens Club and Alliance of Chinese Association. He was survived by his wife, three sons, and daughter.

George Mar, also in his fifties, was chief chef at Far East Restaurant in North Seattle. He was not married but left behind a sister.

Jack Mar, in his sixties, was a retired postal worker who had lived in California before moving to Seattle. He traveled frequently between Hong Kong and Seattle, visiting his wife in China whom he planned to eventually bring to the United States.

Wing Wong, 59, worked all his life as a cook, and was a relative fixture at Sun Ya restaurant. An army sergeant during World War II, he was decorated for his service in Europe. A wife and two children survived him.

Gim Lun Wong, 54, was an employee at the Ming Tree Restaurant and worked part-time at the Wah Mee Club. The manager of the Ming Tree restaurant, Betty Mar, said, "He was a good worker and was always laughing. He loved to tease and loved to joke. He really enjoyed life. Gambling was part of his life. It was no secret that was what he did in his off-hours."

The mass killings at the Wah Mee were the fourth recorded instance of homicide linked to gambling clubs in Chinatown. On June 1, 1981, two Cannery Workers Union Local 37 officials were killed in the labor organization's Pioneer Square headquarters. Police and prosecutors said the killings involved gang members from two Filipino gambling clubs in the International District. Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes were killed in that incident because it was reported that they had interfered with gambling operations controlled by a Filipino gang known as "Tulisan." The Tulisan gang allegedly controlled gambling at Alaska canneries and provided security at two Filipino gambling clubs in Chinatown -- the "514" and "609" clubs on South King Street.

On April 9, 1977, two people were gunned down outside the China Gate restaurant in full view of the restaurant's patrons. Police believed that the victims were executed because of disputes over control of gambling activities.

And in March of that same year, an eighty-seven year old man was gunned down in a Chinatown store used for gambling. He died the next day.

The slayings were also the latest in a rash of violent incidents in Chinatowns across the United States. On December 23, 1982, masked gunmen burst into a restaurant in New York City's Chinatown and fired randomly into the crowd. The restaurant was rumored to be a hangout for "Chinese gangsters." Three people were killed and eight others were injured in the incident. Earlier, in 1977, three men entered the Golden Dragon restaurant in San Francisco's Chinatown and opened fire on approximately seventy-five late-night diners. Five people were killed and eleven others were injured in that incident.

The tragedy at the Wah Mee Club cast an unfortunate light on a few contemporary local public figures. While both city and police officials pleaded for help in finding the third suspect and bringing closure to the investigation, many Chinatown residents believed that the events that transpired at the Wah Mee Club could have been prevented by these same officials.

Mayor Charles Royer adamantly denied any tolerance policy…sort of. "We will not tolerate gambling," Mayor Royer said, "Nor will we harass people by trying to find gambling under every rug." Was Mayor Royer waffling? Maybe, but his rhetoric was nothing new. Seattle had a history of mayors who denied gambling tolerance policies in order to secure their place in office and deflect pressures from local law enforcement, businessmen, and public officials who benefited financially from illegal gambling activities.

The day after the killings, Mayor Royer and Police Chief Patrick Fitzsimons held a meeting to address the community's concerns and seek help in capturing the third suspect. "This is the first and highest priority in the city," Mayor Royer said. "We are asking for your help in doing this. We can't bring justice in the city if we are not allowed to understand." In that meeting, Chief Fitzsimons admitted that police had been unable to infiltrate an illegal game in many years because gamblers knew even the Chinese officers on the force. "We are trying to find out who may have been with those two men in Chinatown," Fitzsimons told his audience, "particularly on that evening. We also need your assistance in finding out more about the operation of the Club, particularly those who may have used the Club regularly or who had worked there."

Fitzsimons accepted the role of Seattle's police chief in 1979, after a decade that saw eight police chiefs come and go. "Several of those chiefs," Times reporter Dave Birkland commented, "were more or less 'caretakers' during an investigation into departmental corruption during the 1970s." If there was one thing that Fitzsimons had, it was staying power -- perhaps the result of arriving in Seattle after working as a police officer in New York City. The average tenure for a police chief in a major U.S. city is less than five years. Fitzsimons would serve as Seattle Police Chief for nearly two decades, something he would later accredit to "always paying attention to details -- an important aspect of...running a police department."

The meeting between Chief Fitzsimons and members of Chinatown was an odd event indeed. The police chief was asking for information about the "operation" of one of the oldest gambling clubs in Seattle, a club well known for operating under a tolerance policy enforced by local law enforcement. And as the story continued to break, scores of Chinatown residents came out of the woodwork to report that the Wah Mee Club was well-known by police officers and private citizens alike.

Two days later the Times reported that many Chinatown residents believed city officials tolerated gambling. Restaurant owner and civic leader, Omar Tahir, stated, "Everybody knows there's gambling in the streets of Chinatown. Now we got thirteen people dead because of a police tolerance policy."

One regular of the Wah Mee Club commented, "Only the Chinese were allowed into the gambling area out front. And cops. A lot of beat cops spent a lot of time in there. I never asked about it."

And yet officers denied knowing that the Wah Mee Club was back in operation. Major Dean Olson, head of the Seattle Police Department's vice and narcotics unit, commented, "The Club was obviously set up for high-stakes gambling, but we did not know that before the shootings. We had no information it was even open."

Police officers reported that gambling was the least of their concerns in the Chinese community. The three major crimes at the time were burglary, shoplifting, and meter looting. "There's not a lot of serious crime," said police officer Bill Waid, commenting on his patrol beat that covered Chinatown. "There's not much for police to do down here except try to keep the winos from killing each other in Hing Hay Park."

And Chief Fitzsimons reminded the public that, after he was appointed police chief, he placed two members of his command staff with reputations of being hard on gambling (one of whom was Vern Thomas, a police major who had stepped down earlier because a gambling raid had allegedly been called off) in the most sensitive positions affecting vice control.

But a veteran street cop, who asked not to be identified, claimed that he and other officers were discouraged from any aggressive investigation of Chinatown gambling. "My own experience was that it was a great place to go and eat, but I was never told to do anything, one way or the other. Earlier administrations created a taste that it was hands-off, and the current administration has done nothing to change it."

Police admitted that the differences in language and culture made it difficult for them to penetrate the Asian communities. They were frustrated with the little cooperation they received from the close-knit Chinese community.

A distinct yet blurred line divides illegal gambling as a part of Chinese culture from what the larger American society views as criminal. Gambling fostered much growth in Chinatowns along the West Coast (its three largest locales being Seattle, San Francisco, and Vancouver, B.C.), with the earliest recorded instances dating back to their arrival in the mid-nineteenth century. In a Seattle P-I interview, a Chinatown resident stated, "Gambling is a way of life here. Kids play Mah Jongg like white kids play Monopoly. There are dozens of places where you can play. A lot of old ladies do it. It's like passing the time, something to do. A lot people who live here ain't got enough money, so they gamble."

A former manager at the Wah Mee commented, "After working behind a stove for eight hours, we need a place for relaxation, to socialize and release tension. You can only talk so long and then maybe you play a little pinochle."

Gary Flinn, a police department public information officer, stated at the time, "There are certain behaviors -- gambling is one of them -- accepted by the community. Accepted with a religious fervor."

Ruby Chow, the famous restaurant owner and member of the Club in its early years, commented, "The Chinese community here has no other recreation. They have no movies and they can't understand the television. If they sit and play Mah Jongg, that is their only recreation. A lot of them can't afford to go hunting or fishing. I think they are entitled to their privacy and their own recreation after working the whole day."

In an interview in Ron Chew's book, Reflections of Seattle's Chinese Americans: The First 100 Years, the late Henry Kay Lock comments on the early years of Seattle's Chinatown during the Depression: "Chinatown at that time was really a busy, bustling place with all the gambling houses open. There were four houses: Mei Jew, Wah Mee and two owned by Hop Sing down on Second Avenue. There were lots of lottery joints. The police were mostly paid off. I remember Charlie Louie used to be the payoff man. He took care of the gambling joints and paid them off. The gambling business supported quite a few people."

Several days after the killings, a police spokesman commented on the criticism that local police were receiving in regards to gambling tolerance allegations. "You have to wonder…what would have been the political repercussions if we had busted the Wah Mee before this happened," the spokesman pondered, contradicting a statement made earlier that police officers didn't even know the Wah Mee was operating; how could they have busted the Club if they didn't even know the Club existed? "There'd probably been a hell of an outrage. The same people who are now saying there's a gambling policy would probably have said we were harassing the community."

Chapter Eight | Collecting evidence, searching for Tony Ng, and burying the dead

This story originally appeared as a serialized feature in Asian Focus newspaper