Fresno student and roommate nearly shot. A gaming monitor stopped one of five bullets
Eric Gan was asleep at 4 a.m. on a Sunday when a shocking bang woke him up.
He thought someone was breaking into his northeast Fresno apartment. For nearly an hour, he waited quietly on his bed and listened for any footsteps or chatter coming from downstairs. He heard nothing more.
When the sun came up, his roommate had already inspected the apartment and found holes in a window, ceiling fan and ceiling. He rushed over to the other room to get Gan.
“I woke up and walked into his room. It was a mess; there was dust everywhere,” Gan said. “He said, ‘We have been shot.’ ”
The loud bang that woke him up that morning had been a bullet — one of five fired into the apartment hours earlier.
Two bullets pierced through his roommate’s bedroom window, one traveling through a ceiling fan and ending up lodged in the ceiling.
Two more came through the walls of Gan’s room and they ended up stuck in the ceiling, too.
The fifth bullet made a hole in Gan’s wall, but it came to a full stop when it hit his MSI gaming monitor.
A metal plate behind the Taiwanese product kept the bullet from traveling any farther. It had been the lowest of the five bullets, just inches from Gan’s bed as he slept.
The fact that the monitor stopped the bullet has earned Gan and the makers of the MSI monitor some fame. The incident went viral after Gan posted about it to Twitter and got reactions from thousands of people, including the company.
MSI monitor stops bullet
Gan said he searched the ceiling for a fifth bullet hole, but couldn’t find it. “I was trying to find it everywhere, like ‘Where’s the hole? Where’s the hole?’ ’’
Then he and his roommate realized what the monitor had managed to do. Gan’s roommate had first spotted dust behind the monitor, and then the two saw the hole behind it. A hole was visible at the corner of a metal plate, but to Gan’s surprise, the monitor was in nearly-perfect shape. It still works for gaming and streaming, which he often does on Twitch.
Neither Gan nor his roommate were injured in the shooting. The two wondered right away whether they were being targeted or whether it was just a random shooting. Behind their apartment near Shaw and Chestnut avenues is a street that Gan said often gets loud.
Fresno police Lt. Mark Hudson said the shooting does not appear targeted. He said officers arrived Sunday around 8 p.m. when Gan called 911. Gan, a Malaysian international student, had driven to police headquarters to report the crime but the offices were closed on that Sunday.
Hudson said police are asking for the public’s help on locating those responsible for the shooting, which could have injured Gan and his roommate.
Crime scene investigators took three bullet fragments as evidence when they arrived to the apartment. Gan found another one Thursday.
International attention
The shooting got international attention after Gan posted about it to Twitter and Reddit. He’s gotten several thousand shares on Twitter and he said the company found out about the incident through Reddit.
A representative reached out to him, and Gan said he has since been offered a replacement monitor. His will be shipped to Taiwan to the company’s headquarters.
Gan earned double the followers than he previously had on Twitch, where he broadcasts his video game activity. He said he has tried to find humor in the scary incident.
“Remember to get head shots in games, not in real life,” he tweeted to his followers. Memes of a monitor riddled with bullets being used as a shield were made to highlight the monitor’s strength.
Farmosa TV, a Taipei, Taiwan-based news agency, highlighted the entire incident for their viewers. The segment examined the monitor closely and took apart the monitor to show how it’s made.
“They are very proud of this,” Gan said. Though, he added, “I don’t think it’s supposed to block bullets.”
As a response to the incident, MSI pledged to donate $1 per retweet to an anti-violence charity. They noted Gan’s lucky fate amid random gunfire.
MSI planned to send Gan the new monitor along with some other goods, Gan said. He also said the monitor will be taken back to the company’s headquarters, and he plans to visit it at some point.
His parents overseas have also learned about the incident. Gan said his parents in the federal territory of Kual Lumpur in Malaysia have asked him to move out of his apartment. He does plan to move out, and said Thursday that his decision is partly due to the shooting.
“If it happens once, it can happen twice,” he said. “Maybe the next time they shoot off to my head level.”
This story was originally published March 8, 2019 at 2:55 PM.
