Approximately 500 white and Latino Americans attacked, harassed, robbed, and murdered the ethnic Chinese residents in what is today referred to as the old Chinatown neighborhood.

The mob gathered after hearing that a policeman and a rancher had been killed as a result of a conflict between rival tongs, the Nin Yung, and Hong Chow.

As news of their death spread across the city, fueling rumors that the Chinese community "were killing whites wholesale", more men gathered around the boundaries of Negro Alley.

[12][9] The massacre ended around 9:30 pm, when the Sheriff "called for twenty-five armed volunteers on the side of law and order to preserve the peace and guard the building until this morning.

[16] Another factor was the rough frontier nature of Los Angeles, which in the 1850s had a disproportionately high number of lynchings for its size, and an attachment to "popular justice" (this was also a period of violence across the country).

"[20] Los Angeles historian Morrow Mayo described it in 1933 as: a dreadful thoroughfare, forty feet wide, running one whole block, filled entirely with saloons, gambling-houses, dance-halls, and cribs.

[38] While Que Ma was being held in custody in Los Angeles, the five men involved in the torture of Sing Yu were tried, and four were found guilty of an assault to do great bodily injury.

However, the evening before the trial, the Deputy Sheriff of Santa Barbara county arrived in Los Angeles and arrested Sing Yu on a charge of grand larceny.

She was dragged up to Judge Trafford's office, and there, against her will and without knowing what was going on, was put through the forms of a marriage ceremony, and afterwards carried away by Lee Leeung in a carriage.

[55] Marshal Baker,[54] Sheriff Burns,[54] officers Hester[12] and Harris[54] individually gave parties instructions to take the Chinese to jail for safety.

[57] One group of men, consisting of C. White, John Lazzarovich, and brothers Robert and Walter Widney, managed to rescue four Chinese from the mob near Tomlinson's.

[8] Rioters climbed to the rooftops of buildings where Chinese immigrants resided, used pickaxes to puncture holes in the roofs, and shot at the people inside.

[4] By the end of the riot: The dead Chinese people in Los Angeles were hanging at three places near the heart of the downtown business section of the city; from the wooden awning over the sidewalk in front of a carriage shop; from the sides of two "prairie schooners" parked on the street around the corner from the carriage shop; and from the cross-beam of a wide gate leading into a lumberyard a few blocks away from the other two locations.

In the process of pursuing justice for the murdered Chinese victims, utterly innocent of the Massacre, seven men were sentenced in the law court, whether unquestionably guilt-ridden or not.

Four days after this complaint, County Court Judge Ygnacio Sepulveda convened a special Grand Jury to investigate the events around to the massacre.

Constable Richard Kerren was on Los Angeles Street during the initial barricade of the Coronel Adobe when a door opened, and he, along with several others, fired into the doorway.

The indictment alleged the defendants "did feloniously, unlawfully, deliberately, premeditatedly, and of their malice aforethought, stand by, aid, abet, assist, advise, counsel and encourage, unknown persons, to feloniously, unlawfully, etc., to kill and murder one Gene Tong," Cameron Thom limited the indictment to the murder of only one victim, Doctor Gene Tong.

Judge Widney's opinion on the challenge used one precedent and several statutes that implied that the indictment used words and language to "sufficiently state that Gene Tong is dead", and "enabled a person of common understanding to know what is intended.

[67] Jury selection had already begun the week before, but it was decided to limit the venires to only those residents of Los Angeles County who speak and understand the English Language.

[68] During the trial, defense attorneys Edward J. C. Kewen and James G. Howard presented a motion to strike all testimony on the grounds the prosecution failed to prove Gene Tong was dead.

Judge Joseph B. Crockett wrote in his opinion, "... it appears from the uncontradicted testimony of the policeman, that when the shooting first commenced in the street, the plaintiffs' store and the corral in the rear of it were filled with armed Chinamen, who immediately fired on the officers when attempting to preserve the peace.

It is in the highest degree improbable that this large body of armed men could have assembled in the plaintiffs' store, and in a sheltered place in the rear of it, without their knowledge and privity.

If the plaintiffs had been anxious to prevent a riot, it is clear, from the proof, that they had ample opportunity to notify the Mayor, and to summon the police before the shooting commenced.

"[72] Jesus Bilderrain swore out a complaint before Justice Trafford, accusing Sam Yuen of aiding and abetting the unidentified killer of Robert Thompson.

Adolfo Celis testified that he had seen Yuen carrying a revolver and running behind another Chinese man as both entered the Coronel Block at the time of the initial affray.

[53] Several other witnesses were called, including Officer Esteban Sanchez who testified that Sam Yuen shot at him from inside the Wing Chung store.

[52] The habeas corpus hearing continued five days, at which point Judge Widney concluded Yuen should be held to answer before the next grand jury on a charge of manslaughter.

[15] The decision said that "the indictment on which Lewis Mendel, A. R. Johnson, Charles Austin, P. M. McDonald, Jesus Martinez, and Estevan A. Alvarado, were tried and convicted was fatally defective in that it failed to allege that Chee Long Tong was murdered.

"[15] This flaw in the indictment had been debated during a pre-trial demurrer, where Judge Robert Widney concluded "... the words used, construed in the usual acceptance in common language, sufficiently state that Gene Tong is dead.

"[66] The Los Angeles Daily News wrote, "The convicted parties escape full punishment for their crimes by a quibble, justice is complacent, and the eagle roosts high.