UCI Senior Shot in L.A. Is Taken Off Critical List

UC Irvine senior Chang Su Lee was celebrating completion of his dental school admission test when suspected Vietnamese gang members followed him from a Koreatown bar in Los Angeles and shot him four times, Lee’s roommate said Monday.

Lee, 22, was shot twice in the abdomen, once in the right leg and once in the right arm at about 1:30 a.m. Sunday, but by Monday afternoon his condition had improved from critical to serious, according to a spokeswoman for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

“He was kind of lucky,” said Paula Correia of the hospital’s public affairs department. “He’s still in the intensive care unit, but he seems to be recuperating. He speaks, he’s awake, he looks like he’s going to recover nicely. He may be transferred to non-intensive care (today).”

Los Angeles police said Monday that the case probably will be referred to the department’s gang investigators. Officers said Sunday that Lee and an unidentified friend were leaving the Tango Club bar at 6th Street and Manhattan Place Sunday morning when a fight broke out in the parking lot between Vietnamese and Korean gang members.

Police said they did not know whether Lee became involved in the fight or merely witnessed it, but Vietnamese gang members followed Lee to a nearby convenience store, where he was shot in a telephone booth.

Lee’s roommate, who asked not to be identified, said in an interview that he is certain Lee has no connection with gangs.

“I’ve known him for about four years now, and I’ve never seen him with gang members,” the roommate said. “He’s never involved in gang activity. I know his friends, and none of them are involved with gangs. They all have grad school or careers in mind.”