Motive: unknown, initially.
On May 15, 2022, a shooter killed one person and wounded five others in a Southern California church. Members of the Taiwanese congregation hogtied him until authorities could arrive. The shooter was Asian. The person who first rushed him was the one who died.
The Washington Post reported: “Authorities described the suspect as an Asian man in his 60s who does not live in the area. They took him into custody and said any potential motive in the shooting is unclear.”
The motive
Some must have suspected the motive. But the shooter apparently did not yell it out as he attacked. A day later, however, there was no doubt.
On May 16, 2022, ABC News reported that the shooting was “motivated by the political tension between China and Taiwan, authorities said Monday.” Which doesn’t say much by itself.
David Chou (also known as Zhou Wenwei) had
secured the doors and tried to super glue the locks so victims could not leave, Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes said Monday. Law enforcement found more ammunition and Molotov cocktails placed around the church….
Authorities believe Chou’s anger began when he lived in Taiwan, where he felt he was an outsider, and his anti-Taiwan views were not accepted, Barnes said.
Chou’s wife and son still live in Taiwan, but Chou has lived alone in the U.S. for many years, Barnes said, adding that Chou’s views have become more radical as tensions between China and Taiwan have escalated.
Investigators found writings in Chou’s car that described his hatred for Taiwan, Barnes said, adding that they were not a manifesto, but rather “notes.” Authorities hypothesize that Chou may have targeted the Orange County church because it was the closest, Barnes said….
Dr. John Cheng, 52, a prominent doctor in the area, was identified as the only person killed in the attack. He is being called a hero for saving lives. He charged the suspect and tried to disarm him allowing others to jump in, Barnes said. During the process, Cheng was shot and killed. Without his actions, the sheriff and FBI believes there would have been more people shot.
Chou’s notes, unreported in any detail, were supplemented by a seven-volume diary entitled Diary of an Angel Destroying Independence. In this title CBS News detects “an apparent reference to Taiwan’s self-government,” which has endured despite CCP demands that Taiwan submit to rule by the mainland. The contents of the diary have not been reported either.
Things like escalating tensions between the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China (and they’re always escalating) or having a minority viewpoint about Taiwan while living in Taiwan could not alone have sufficed to motivate a hatred of Taiwan and the Taiwanese so intense that it became murderous, something that a person might choose to act on. It was this antipathy plus his disappointment with life that motivated him. According to a Chinese-language Mirror Media report, he had lost his wife and his house, and had told people that “I don’t care about life anymore.”
In The True Believer, Eric Hoffer writes: “When our individual interests and prospects do not seem worth living for, we are in desperate need of something apart from us to live for…. We can have qualified confidence in ourselves, but the faith we have in our nation, religion, race or holy cause has to be extravagant and uncompromising. A substitute embraced in moderation cannot supplant and efface the self we want to forget.”
Waishengren
Chou’s fate is still undecided. As of March 2026, federal prosecutors were seeking the death penalty. A trial was then scheduled for May but does not yet seem to have taken place.
On May 11, 2026, the Los Angeles Times reported that in a “sweeping new federal indictment, a Las Vegas man accused of killing one person and injuring five others last year at a Taiwanese Presbyterian church in Orange County has been charged with hate crimes, murder and attempted murder….
“Chou left notes in his car saying Taiwan should not be independent from China, according to local law enforcement. Chou grew up in Taiwan as a waishengren—a person with recent roots in China.”
