Michael Nguyen has come to pay his respects,standing silently in the car park that leads to the entrance of the Star Ballroom Dance Studio,where a Lunar New Year celebration turned into tragedy.
Michael Nguyen used to attend the ballroom dance studio where the Monterey Park mass shooting took place.Farrah Tomazin
It’s an entrance he knows all too well:until six months ago,the 40-year-old would dance at the studio three times a week,and his parents still attend regularly. Fortunately,they were not there on the night of the massacre.
“I just couldn’t believe it,” the softly spoken Nguyen tells this masthead. “It was Chinese New Year,so I felt horrified that it was either going to be a random act of hate against Asian people like myself,or it was something very personal involving somebody in the ballroom dance community,which is very small. So it felt sickening either way.”
embarked on a rampage in Monterey Park – a predominantly Asian area 11 kilometres from downtown Los Angeles – a grieving community is struggling to make sense of it all as investigators continue to search for a motive.
The attack took place at around 10.20pm on Saturday when Tran walked into the popular dance studio and opened fire,killing five men and five women and injuring 10 others,all of whom were aged over 50. The death toll has since risen to 11,after one of the victims who was taken to hospital for treatment died on Monday morning (Tuesday AEDT).
An Asian American family says they're sad about the constant threat to life after the 33rd mass shooting in the US this year,with this one "just so close to home."
After leaving the studio,Tran then attempted to launch another attack at the Lai Lai ballroom in the neighbouring city of Alhambra about 20 minutes later,but was disarmed before fleeing the scene.
Brandon Tsay,the third-generation operator of the family-run dance hall in Alhambra,told ABC’sGood Morning America that he lunged at the man after seeing him walk into the venue with a gun,looking for people to shoot.
“He started prepping the weapon and something came over me,” Tsay recalled. “We struggled into the lobby,trying to get this gun away from each other. He was hitting me across the face,bashing the back of my head.
“Finally at one point I was able to pull the gun away from him,shove him aside,create some distance,point the gun at him,intimidate him and say:Get the hell out of here! I’ll shoot! Get away! Go!”
Authorities released these images of the shooter. He was later found dead.Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Departmen
An hours-long manhunt to find Tran finally ended on Sunday afternoon when tactical teams surrounded a vehicle in Torrance that matched the description of the white cargo van in which he was believed to have fled. There,
LA County Sheriff Robert Luna said officers issued a search warrant on the suspected gunman’s home in Hemet on and recovered a rifle,ammunition,electronic devices and other items that led them to believe that the suspect was manufacturing silencers. Tran had also been arrested in 1990 for unlawful possession of a firearm,he said.
But the motive remains unclear - including whether the gunman,who once frequented the dance hall and met his ex-wife there,had connections to any of his victims.
“We’re hearing there were possible relationships there,but I’m not going to confirm that yet,” Luna told reporters.
Brandon Tsay disarmed the Monterey gunman Huu Can Tran at the second location,the Lai Lai Ballroom,near Los Angeles.Screenshot/American ABC News
Four victims have been identified by authorities:My Nhan,65,Lilan Li,63,and Xiujuan Yu,57,and Valentino Alvero,68.
In a Nhan’s family described her as a person whose “smile and kindness was contagious”.
“She spent so many years going to the dance studio in Monterey Park on weekends. It’s what she loved to do,” they wrote. “But unfairly,Saturday was her last dance. We are starting the Lunar New Year broken. We never imagined her life would end so suddenly.”
The mass shooting in Monterey Park was the 33rd to take place so far this year,and the worst since last May’s Uvalde tragedy,in which 19 children and two teachers were killed when a 21-year-old gun opened fire at the Robb Elementary School in south Texas.
The latest incident happened during the weekend’s Lunar New Year celebration,initially raising fears of another hate crime against the Asian-American community,which has experienced an uptick of violence and discrimination since the pandemic.
While Tran’s Asian heritage has made the likely motive less clear-cut,authorities say “everything is on the table” in the effort to identify the motive.
As investigators continued to piece details together,it also emerged that Tran had recently visited police in Hemet,where he was living in a caravan park,to say that his family was poisoning him.
According to a statement from Hemet police,he attended the local police station January 7 and 9 “alleging past fraud,theft and poisoning allegations involving his family in the Los Angeles area 10 to 20 years ago. Tran stated he would return to the station with documentation but never returned”.
In Washington DC,President Joe Biden ordered American flags on federal government property to be flown at half-mast until Thursday at dawn “as a mark of respect for the victims of the senseless acts of violence”.
Back at the dance studio,a tight-knit community continues to grieve and some wonder what it will take to thwart the gun violence epidemic.
“We’re just so tired of all the senseless violence and shooting,” says Jan Alejandro as his daughter Arlene gently places a bouquet of red roses on the makeshift memorial.
“It’s so frustrating because it doesn’t matter who’s in the White House or who is in Congress,they’re not getting anything done.”
Jan Alejandro and his daughter Arlene pay their respects at the site of the Monterey Park mass shooting.Farrah Tomazin
“It’s hard to put words to how I’m feeling,” Arlene says holding back tears. “I didn’t really think about how this could happen in my backyard because it’s too close to home for me. I truly don’t feel safe. I don’t feel safe about walking down the street. There’s so much violence.”
School bus driver Inez Arakaki also came to pay tribute to the victims with her nine-year-old son Zachary.
Inez Arakaki with her nine-year-old son Zachary.Farrah Tomazin
“He’s been saying it would be nice to live in a place where they don’t have guns,” Arakaki tells this masthead.
“I drive by here every day in my school bus. I know kids in the area. It’s scary. It’s scary to think that thousands of people were here at the Lunar New Year festival at 9 o’clock[just before the shooting].
“They came out to celebrate,especially after the pandemic. Everybody’s been locked up indoors and didn’t want to come out because of what’s going on – and then this happened. It’s devastating.”
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