On the evening of December 7, 2015, Ying Guan Chen, a 68-year-old Asian male, attended a wedding reception for a mutual friend at the Golden Imperial Palace restaurant in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. What should have been a joyous occasion took a tragic turn, stemming from a bitter feud that had its roots in a small village in China over two decades prior. Another guest at the wedding, though seated at a different table, was a man named Wu Long Chen, then 46 years old.
An old grudge over a building dispute between their families in China, which had resulted in a physical altercation and serious injury to one of Wu Long's relatives, had been simmering for years.
As Ying Guan Chen left the reception around 9:35 p.m., he was unknowingly followed by Wu Long Chen. Surveillance footage captured Wu Long stalking his target to the corner of Seventh Avenue and 61st Street. There, Wu Long ambushed the elder Chen, shooting him multiple times in the head, chest, and arm. Despite his grave injuries, Ying Guan Chen managed to stagger into a nearby Popeyes restaurant, where he collapsed, telling employees in Mandarin that he was going to die. He was rushed to Lutheran Medical Center, where he succumbed to his wounds.
The investigation swiftly pointed to Wu Long Chen as the primary suspect. After the shooting, his gun jammed, and he dropped it before fleeing the scene. In an attempt to evade justice, Wu Long fled to Texas, with the intention of crossing the border into Mexico. However, his escape was thwarted when he was apprehended in Laredo, Texas, on December 31, 2015.
Wu Long Chen was charged with second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon. During the trial, it was revealed that he had harbored a deep-seated grudge for over 20 years. Because he was unable to locate Ying Guan Chen's sons, with whom the original dispute lay, he sought revenge by targeting their father, even though Ying Guan himself had no direct involvement in the initial conflict. In June 2017, a jury found Wu Long Chen guilty. He was subsequently sentenced to 25 years to life in prison, bringing a close to a tragic story of a long-held vendetta that crossed continents and ended in a senseless act of violence on a Brooklyn street.
