Capitol Hill rampage worst since Wah Mee Massacre

Saturday's shooting spree in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood was the state's worst mass shooting since the February 1983 Wah Mee Massacre, in which 13 people were slain during a robbery at a gambling parlor in Seattle's Chinatown International District.

Three men — Kwan Fai "Willie" Mak, Benjamin Ng and Tony Ng (no relation to Benjamin) — are serving life sentences for the Wah Mee killings.

Other recent shootings in Washington state that involved multiple victims include:

• In November 1999, Kevin Cruz walked into the Northlake Shipyard building at the north end of Lake Union and shot four men, killing two. Cruz was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

• In July 1998, five young men walked into the Trang Dai cafe in Tacoma and fired nearly 60 rounds of ammunition, killing five people and injuring five more in what were described as gang-related killings. Of the nine men charged in the case, two committed suicide, another was killed before trial, four pleaded guilty and two were convicted at trial.

• Two people were killed and three were injured in September 1997 in a drive-by shooting on the West Seattle Bridge. The two were changing a flat tire on their car while parked on the bridge when another car drove past and one of the occupants opened fire with an assault rifle. The car turned around and more shots, a total of 70, were fired.

The shooter, Marvin Francisco, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole; the driver, Emerson Yumul, was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

• In June 1994, Airman Dean Mellberg, who had been discharged from the military for mental-health reasons, opened fire with a semiautomatic assault rifle at Spokane's Fairchild Air Force Base hospital. Four people were killed and 22 were injured before Mellberg was shot and killed by a base security officer.

• Two people were killed and five were wounded in April 1994 at an alcohol-free club on Rainier Avenue South in Seattle. Police blamed a gunfight between gangs for the shooting at the club, where the clientele was mostly young and Vietnamese.

The prosecutor's office initially charged two suspects with second-degree murder, but charges were dropped against one man.

The second, Son Thanh Nguyen, pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree assault with a deadly weapon and was sentenced to less than three years in prison.

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