Gunman Seemed to Have a Hit List : Shootings: The disgruntled former worker moved through Santa Fe Springs plant methodically, warning some and targeting others, witnesses say.

A disgruntled former employee who killed three co-workers and wounded two others before killing himself at a Santa Fe Springs electronics plant appeared to have methodically chosen his victims, witnesses said Tuesday.

But at least one victim of the shooting rampage said he had no idea why he was targeted by Tuan Nguyen, a 29-year-old Huntington Beach assembly worker who had been employed for less than three months at Extron Electronics, the scene of Monday’s violence.

Shifting painfully in his bed at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, 26-year-old Hoa Pham, a Westminster assembly worker who was shot twice by Nguyen, said he knew Nguyen only as a work acquaintance and did not recognize him as the gunman until after he read newspaper accounts of the incident.

Indeed, Pham and others said, Nguyen had remained a mystery during his short stint at Extron. Of the people he sought out in the manufacturing plant, they said, only one seemed a likely target for his rage--his immediate supervisor, who had fired him 2 1/2 weeks ago for unsatisfactory performance, and who escaped the attack because she was out to lunch.

The reconstruction of the rampage came as the families of Nguyen’s victims and the gunman’s former co-workers struggled to absorb the shock of the incident.

The co-workers, who earn $8 to $9 an hour producing interfaces that connect computers to video screens, said that until Monday they had considered the Extron plant a safe place to work. Access to the building is controlled by door locks that can be opened only by punching a secret, five-digit code, and witnesses said Nguyen entered the building just like a regular employee.

The families of those who died were crushed by the senseless violence of the attack.

“I don’t understand,” said the weeping sister of 27-year-old Chin (Chris) Van Nguyen, an electronics repairman from Garden Grove who died in the attack.

The repairman--who is not related to the gunman--was shot twice in the back. Workers who knew him said he had once been featured as a model employee in a company newsletter. He had become a U.S. citizen last year, and had celebrated by changing his name to Christopher Arthur Newell.

Engaged to be married, they said, he recently had been awarded a bachelor’s degree from a technical school, and was hoping to move to a better-paying engineering job.

“Chin always helped so many people,” said his sister, her eyes and face swollen with grief. “Why would someone like that be shot?”

Witnesses had few clues to his motive, but said Tuan Nguyen moved methodically through the assembly plant singling out one employee after another. Survivors said he went so far as to warn some bystanders to “get down” or “get out” while he stalked his targets.

Hermes Bagnol, a 33-year-old La Habra product tester, was one of the lucky ones.

Bagnol said he had just crossed the room when Nguyen burst in. He said he looked up just in time to see the gunman take aim at Son (Sonny) Van Truong.

Truong, a technician from Pomona who was among the most skilled employees at the plant, had told friends that he hoped to someday earn enough money to open his own TV repair shop. As Bagnol stood, thunderstruck, the gunman shot Truong in the back of the head, killing him instantly.

The gunfire was enough to send Bagnol scrambling into a corner to hide; Nguyen, he said, never saw him as he turned and rushed into the next room.

From his vantage point, Bagnol said, he could see Nguyen take aim at co-worker Hoa Pham, who had ducked under a table, and shoot him in the buttocks.

Then the gunman paused to reload, Bagnol said.

“That’s when I ran,” he said. “He just yelled, ‘Get down! Get down!’ He was out of his mind maybe. He was mad. He was angry.”

Witnesses said Nguyen fled into yet another part of the building, brushing past worker Song Sabandith, 36, of Placentia.

Without warning, Sabandith said, the gunman raised his pistol and shot the co-worker he knew only by his new American name, Chris, twice in the back. Petrified, Sabandith threw his hands over his head and cried out in his native Laotian, “Man, don’t shoot! I surrender!”

Then, he recalled, he dropped to his knees and prayed as the gunman--obviously in search of someone--rushed into another room, then left it and kicked open the door of a bathroom and then stormed into a third room where he fired twice more.

Those shots, Sabandith said, were the gunman’s last, and were fired in the office of Nguyen’s immediate supervisor, Laura Ferrino of Murrieta.

Sabandith said that when Nguyen burst into the office and found Ferrino out to lunch, he turned and shot the woman at the desk next to hers, a more skilled employee who had helped train him when he was hired.

The shot, which killed Thu (Theresa) Pham of Santa Ana, apparently was the gunman’s next to last round. Authorities said Nguyen’s final bullet was reserved for himself. Deputies said he was still clutching the pistol when they found his body.

Gary Kayye, a company vice president, said Extron is providing individual and group counseling for employees, who were told to take Tuesday afternoon and today off.

“I think it’s hitting everybody more than yesterday,” worker Pat Topete said. “It’s hard to believe this happened here.”

Worker Connie De Diego said her reaction was more anger than disbelief.

“How do you react?” she snapped. “This is supposed to be a civilized society. Then people turn into animals.”

Times staff writers Lily Dizon and Thuan Le and community correspondent Psyche Pascual contributed to this story.