Father, cousin recount horror of Grand Prairie shooting rampage

By Mitch Mitchell

mitchmitchell@star-telegram.com

ARLINGTON -- When Minh Ha walked out of the men's restroom with his 3-year-old son, he heard a succession of loud pops -- a string of firecrackers, he thought.

Then Tan Do turned to the left, and Ha saw the silhouette of a gun.

"I saw him shoot his mother-in-law and then I saw her fall to the floor," Ha said. "My main concern was for my little boy. It happened so fast. The first instinct is to run."

Ha, a cousin of Do's wife, said he hurried his child outside the roller rink, with his wife and another child close behind.

Before Do went on Saturday's shooting rampage at Forum Roller World in Grand Prairie, killing his wife and four members of her family, he had been quiet during his 10-year-old son's birthday party, relatives said.

But that changed when his mother-in-law, Loan Nguyen, prepared to leave the party, her husband, Hoi Ta, said during a news conference Tuesday at Moore Funeral Home.

"When my wife said goodbye, Tan Do asked, 'You're going home now?'" Ta said through an interpreter. "That's when he pulled his gun and started shooting."

Trini Ta Do, Tan Do's estranged wife, was one of the first to be hit by the gunfire. As she lay dying, facing her mother on the floor, she asked her parents to take care of her two children, Ta said.

"He targeted my family," Ta said.

Within minutes, Tan Do had killed Trini Do, 29, of Grand Prairie; her sister Michelle Ta Pham, 28, also of Grand Prairie; and sister Lynn Ta, 16, brother Hien Ta, 21, and sister-in-law Thuy Nguyen, 25, all of Fort Smith, Ark. He wounded three more of his wife's relatives before killing himself.

The three relatives remained hospitalized Tuesday. Hoi Ta said that while they will eventually be fine physically, none will be healed emotionally.

"This has been the worst pain I have ever had to go through," Hoi Ta said. "My wife and I have been through a lot. To lose six children, even the shooter. He was my son-in-law. He loved Trini Do, and I had to learn to love Tan Do as well."

Pham invited her siblings to the party and hoped that they would move to Texas and live with her and her husband in their new house, Hoi Ta said.

The plan was that they would begin moving in Monday so they could get help with their education, Hoi Ta said.

Since the shooting, Trini and Tan Do's two children have been living with the parents of their father, the family said.

The families are close and live on the same street in Grand Prairie, Ha said. He often takes the children to school in the morning and then drops them off with Tan Do's parents in the afternoon, he said.

The parents are not responsible for the actions of their son, Hoi Ta said.

Tan Do's parents are good, churchgoing people, said Andy Nguyen, the Tarrant County commissioner who is assisting the family.

It would have been difficult for the other grandparents to fulfill the caretaker role for the children, Ha said.

"Half of [Hoi Ta's] family is dead, and the other half is in the hospital," he said. "We're not really concerned about what other people think."

Relatives said they don't know how witnessing the shooting might affect the children.

The Dos' 10-year-old "begged his father not to shoot [his mother]," Hoi Ta said. "He held on to her hand while his father yelled at him to leave the room."

Mitch Mitchell, 817-390-7752

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