Paul Ronald Wada was a 25-year-old law student who was killed on September 4, 1977, inside the Golden Dragon Restaurant in San Francisco’s Chinatown. The attack, known as the Golden Dragon massacre, was a gang-related mass shooting carried out by members of the Joe Boys who entered the restaurant intending to target leaders of the rival Wah Ching gang. Instead, five innocent bystanders, including Wada, were killed and eleven others were wounded.

The shooting was described as retaliation for a July 4, 1977, shootout that had left a Joe Boys member dead and another wounded. The San Francisco Police Department investigated the massacre, and the case resulted in the arrest and conviction of multiple Joe Boys members; seven perpetrators were eventually convicted and sentenced. The incident also led to the creation of the San Francisco Police Department’s Asian Gang Task Force, credited with helping reduce gang violence in Chinatown by the early 1980s.