MỹYoom Nguyen pulled out a gun when a group of people broke into his Lotus restaurant in Minneapolis, but decided not to pull the trigger in the end.

It was the night of August 26, when looters swept through downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, after rumors of a murder suspect were shot dead by police.

Nguyen was present at the Lotus restaurant when he saw the crowd from 10 to 80 in just a few minutes.

"I told a few people that 'there's nothing here for you guys, don't mess with us,'" Nguyen said.

However, they ignored him, initially stoning, then throwing a fire extinguisher.

"I saw the anger and fear in him and I cried," he said.

Nguyen's family opened the Lotus restaurant in 1984. Their American dream was shattered overnight by several vandals.

"In small restaurants like this, you will get nothing," Nguyen said.

Nguyen thinks that the person who confronts him might be a 17 year old teenager.

The police showed up quite quickly and the crowd fled in disarray.

Governor Tim Walz declared a state of emergency in Minneapolis and deployed a patrol force with the state's National Guard to deal with "illegal violence and looting" in the city center.

"Seeing the family restaurant robbers that we were heartbroken," Nguyen wrote on Facebook the next morning.

Besides the mental impact, Nguyen also suffered some material damage.

"Most of the damage to small businesses like ours is covered and covered by the owner. We don't want to lose our insurance. Without it, we can't function," he said.

Particularly this year, his restaurant suffered 3 riot waves, of which the riots after the death of color George Floyd in May was the largest.

"We are very resilient. My father and mother are very resilient. We come from a country ravaged by war, rebuilding things is not foreign to them," Nguyen said.

"But they kept appearing all the time," Nguyen's mother said.

Many people in the community expressed their support for the Lotus restaurant.

"75% of our customers are," he said.

"They love my family very much," his mother added.