Just hours after thousands of people were gathered together to celebrate Lunar New Year’s Eve in Monterey Park, California, last Saturday evening, a gunman opened fire inside a nearby dance studio, killing 10 people and injuring at least 10 others. An 11th victim later died at the hospital, reports the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services (DHS).
What We Know About the Monterey Park Shooting
The devastating mass shooting took place at about 10:22 p.m. local time this past Saturday, inside the Star Dance Studio in Monterey Park, a predominantly Asian American community in the western San Gabriel Valley region of Los Angeles County. The Chinese-owned ballroom dance studio is located less than a block from where more than 100,000 people attended a Lunar New Year festival, which ended just over an hour before the shooting occurred. “When officers arrived on scene, they observed numerous individuals, patrons […] pouring out of the location, screaming,” said Capt. Andrew Meyer of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. “The officers made entry to the location and located additional victims.”
Suspected Gunman Found Dead of Self-Inflicted Gunshot Wound
According to reports, the same armed man suspected of the mass shooting entered another ballroom dance studio in the neighboring city of Alhambra about half an hour after the Monterey Park attack, but he was disarmed by patrons inside the studio. Police found the suspected gunman, a 72-year-old Asian man identified as Huu Can Tran, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside a white cargo van in Torrance, California, on Sunday morning.
Lunar New Year Festival Canceled in Wake of Shooting
Lunar New Year, a celebration of the arrival of spring and the beginning of the lunisolar calendar year, is the most important holiday in China. It is also widely celebrated in Vietnam, South Korea, and across other Asian cultures. The annual Lunar New Year festival in Monterey Park has historically drawn crowds of more than 100,000 people per day, with attendees flocking from all over Southern California. The first day of the popular two-day festival had just ended when the mass shooting took place, and the rest of the event was canceled by the city.
Asian American Community in Shock and “On Edge”
The tragedy in Monterey Park marks the 33rd mass shooting in 2023, and the deadliest in the United States since last year’s shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two teachers were killed. Thomas Wong, a Monterey Park City Councilmember, has stated that the Monterey Park community is in shock and “on edge” in the wake of the Lunar New Year’s Eve shooting. “Instead of celebrating and bringing family together to look forward to a hopeful and prosperous new year, we’re starting it off with a senseless tragedy,” Wong told NPR.
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