A 69-year-old man was arrested in Carrollton, Texas, on May 5, 2026, following back-to-back shootings that killed two people and wounded three others. Authorities say the violence stemmed from a bitter financial dispute tied to a failed business deal.
Seung Ho Han was taken into custody at H Mart on Old Denton Road in Carrollton after a brief foot chase. Investigators believe he carried out attacks at two separate locations roughly four miles apart: K Towne Plaza, a retail hub in the Koreatown neighborhood, and a nearby apartment complex. The victims identified were Sung Rae Cho, 63, of Denton County, and Edward Schleigh, both killed. The three injured — Olivia Kim, Yo Sung Kim, and Young Yoo — are expected to survive.
Han has been charged with capital murder of multiple persons and three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Court documents reveal the dispute centered on a $75,000 business deal involving Han’s sushi restaurant and a Georgia property investment that he says went bad.
A Targeted Attack, Not Random Violence
Police Chief Roberto Arredondo stressed the violence was not random and that the victims were known to the gunman. Han told detectives he was angry over financial disputes tied to past business dealings.
“It was a known business relationship. We’re still trying to work to identify what caused his actions,” Arredondo said.
The wounded survivors told detectives they had gathered at the strip mall with Cho for a meeting when Han arrived and opened fire. The three injured victims were in stable condition.
The first shooting erupted just before 10 a.m. at K Towne Plaza. Officers arriving at the scene found three adults with gunshot wounds and one person dead. As detectives began processing the scene, a second call came in: another shooting at an apartment complex roughly four miles away, where police discovered a dead man inside one of the units. Officers later converged on a nearby apartment complex where Han had lived recently. Neighbors who spoke with investigators said they did not recognize his name.
Investigation Continues Into Business Dispute
Arredondo emphasized that while investigators have established that the encounters at the plaza and the apartment complex were connected, many questions remain about why tensions escalated so violently on the morning of May 5. Police are still working to determine the exact nature of the meeting that preceded the shootings and the specifics of the financial disputes Han allegedly cited.
Court documents revealed that after the shootings, Han drove to H Mart to say goodbye to friends at the fish market, telling police he had planned to take his own life before officers took him into custody. Han remained in custody on the evening of May 5 as detectives continued their interviews and prepared to formally present charges.
Heavy Federal Presence at the Scene
Detectives spent hours canvassing the shopping plaza, interviewing witnesses, and reviewing surveillance footage to piece together the sequence of events between the two shooting locations. Video circulating online showed Carrollton officers moving cautiously past storefronts at K Towne Plaza with their weapons drawn in the chaotic minutes after the first shooting.
Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and at least one other federal agency were among the law enforcement personnel who responded, with FBI agents seen collecting evidence in the parking lot throughout the afternoon. The federal involvement underscored the scale of the response, even as police described the case as a personal dispute rather than an act of mass terror.
Shock Ripples Through Koreatown
The shootings reverberated through Carrollton’s tight-knit Korean American community, where K Towne Plaza serves as a familiar gathering place. For longtime residents and small business owners, the daytime gunfire marked a jarring disruption to a community known for its stability and entrepreneurship.
“We’re shocked,” said John Jun, who is active in the Korean American community. “We’re not immune to something like this happening, but we are very generally a peaceful community that works hard.”
According to U.S. Census Bureau data, more than 4,000 of the city’s residents are of Korean descent — a population that has helped transform this Dallas suburb into the largest Korean community in the southern United States. Over the past 20 years, the neighborhood has flourished thanks to investment from Korean entrepreneurs. It is anchored by H Mart, the well-known Asian supermarket chain, and lined with dozens of restaurants offering everything from Korean fried chicken to shaved ice desserts known as bingsu. The city is also home to multiple Korean churches, including Baptist and Presbyterian congregations that draw worshippers from across the metro area.
Several merchants in the plaza closed their doors for the remainder of the day as the investigation unfolded. The case adds Carrollton to a string of recent shopping center shootings across the country, though officials stressed that this incident appears driven by a personal grievance rather than indiscriminate violence directed at the public.
Residents of Carrollton’s Koreatown were left to grapple with an unsettling reality — that a violent dispute born from business dealings had spilled into the streets of a community known for its quiet diligence and growing prosperity.
