Ten people were victims of the day of violence in the Asian milieu in California at the beginning of the Chinese New Year. The perpetrator is still on the run.
In the Chinese horoscope, the Year of the Rabbit, which began yesterday (Sunday), stands for gentleness, positivity, peace and a long life, among other things. What transpired late Saturday night at Monterey Park’s “Star Ballroom” east of Los Angeles, where upbeat dancing was on for $10 “Star Night” was the complete opposite: horror, brutal, senseless violence, and multiple deaths.
A still-fugitive assassin, identity unknown, caused a bloodbath in the popular studio of the Chinese-born owner Maria Liang around 10:20 p.m. local time with a semi-automatic automatic rifle – 40 minutes before the last song. According to eyewitnesses, the man, who clearly carried a lot of ammunition and had reloaded several times, shot around indiscriminately. According to the police, at least ten people died on the polished floor, where over 40 courses in tango, waltz, cha cha cha and salsa are regularly offered. A dozen other guests were injured, some seriously, and transported to various hospitals.
It is the first of more than 35 “mass shootings” (gun violence with more than three victims) in the new year in America, where 45,000 people died from gun violence. Just a few days ago, California made headlines that caused grief and shaking of heads when six people were killed in Goshen in the north of the state, apparently for drug gang motives, including a 16-year-old and her ten-month-old child.
Dramatic Scenes
Dramatic scenes must have unfolded on busy West Garvey Avenue near the site of the Chinese New Year celebrations after the first shots were fired. Seung Won Choi, who runs one of the many seafood restaurants next to the dance hall, told local reporters that three people suddenly burst into his shop. “She urged me to lock the door because a man was shooting outside with a submachine gun.” Another resident said his partner was in the bathroom in the “Ballroom” and heard gunshots. When she fled, she saw the shooter – and three lifeless bodies.
Andrew Meyer of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office had next to nothing to offer during his first press briefing that night: “The perpetrator has not been caught, the motive is unknown, even the weapon has not yet been identified.” The investigators, says the head cop, tried feverishly to reconstruct the crime through initial discussions with those affected and eyewitnesses and the evaluation of surveillance cameras.
It is also unclear whether the mass murder, which fueled the ongoing debate about stricter gun laws in political circles in Washington on Sunday, could have had the character of a racially motivated hate crime due to the demographic composition of the city in the San Gabriel Valley with a population of 60,000. A few hours before the bloodbath, just a stone’s throw from the dance hall, an open-air Chinese New Year celebration attended by tens of thousands ended.
First City With Many Asian Citizens
Monterey Park, less than 15 kilometers east of downtown Los Angeles, was the first city in the United States to have a predominantly Asian population, with immigrants from China, Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam. Today, 65 percent are “Asian-Americans”. Latinos (27 percent) and whites (6 percent) are in the minority.
Not only in California did the number of violent attacks on fellow citizens with roots in the Far East rise dramatically in the years of the corona pandemic. In March 2021, a white man shot dead eight people at three massage parlors in the Atlanta area. Six of them were Asian Americans. In the spring of last year, acts of violence, especially against older Asian women in New York, caused outrage. 61-year-old Gui-Ying Ma from Queens was attacked with a rock. She was in a coma for three months before she died.
US President Joe Biden instructed the FBI federal police from his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware on Sunday morning to support the local investigators in Monterey Park to the best of their ability.
This article is originally published on nw.de
