The day after, people in Monterey Park, California, talk about this sound, which has now taken on a completely different meaning for them: Pap-pap-pap-pap-pap-pap-pap. That’s the sound when you throw a firecracker on the street: small explosions one after the other, often combined with fireworks as a sign that the party is loud and bright. That’s what Saturday night was supposed to be for the community in Northeast Los Angeles County: a huge party for the joy of the first Lunar New Year Festival without restrictions since the beginning of the Covid pandemic; all weekend they wanted to celebrate the Chinese New Year in this city, where two-thirds of the residents are of Asian descent. Among other things with firecrackers and fireworks.
But pap-pap-pap-pap-pap-pap-pap is also the sound that a semi-automatic gun makes when someone pulls the trigger. That’s what 72-year-old Huu Can T did. In the dance hall Star Dance Studio he killed ten people and injured ten others, some of them critically. He continued to the neighboring Alhambra, where he apparently also wanted to shoot around in a dance hall. “Two brave visitors took the gun from him and the suspect fled,” said Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna. The perpetrator drove in a white van to Torrance, 40 kilometers south, where he shot himself in the driver’s seat. “We’re still not sure what the motive was. We’re continuing to investigate because we want to know how something so horrible can happen.”
In Monterey Park on Sunday, 20-year-old Bill, who does not want to give his last name, tells the SZ how he experienced the previous evening. He was standing at the ATM on the building right next to the dance hall. Then he heard the sound: Pap-pap-pap-pap-pap-pap-pap. He is a soldier in United States Marine Corps so I know the sound. “But not in this environment. I thought they were firecrackers.” Shortly thereafter, people panicked from the Star Dance Studio fled, seven of them across the parking lot to his truck: “They jumped onto the loading area and yelled: ‘Drive! Drive! Drive!’ So I got in and hit the gas.” When driving away again the noise: Pap-pap-pap-pap-pap-pap-pap. The alleged perpetrator fired again.
The worst attack in California in almost five years
He stopped two blocks away and dropped people off, then drove to his girlfriend’s house less than 500 meters from the crime scene. It was only there that he found out what had happened via police radio: the worst attack in the US state of California since November 2018, when a gunman shot twelve people in a bar in Thousand Oaks.
According to the police, there were around 100 guests in the dance hall at the time of the crime, and music was blaring from the speakers Guangchang Wu, a traditional Chinese dance whose name can be translated as “square dance in public”. It is considered a recreational sport for older people, most of the visitors on Saturday evening were between 50 and 70 years old. All that is known about the victims so far is that there are five women and five men. That also caused unrest the day after.
Juno Blees, for example, says that her parents went to the bar to Lunar New Year to celebrate. Her father was standing near the entrance when the perpetrator opened fire and hit him in the shoulder; he then saw his wife collapse on the dance floor. In the panic that broke out, he lost sight of her, then he was taken from the bar to an ambulance. He has now been released from the hospital, seven of the ten injured are still there, some seriously injured. Blees says she has no information about what happened to her 63-year-old mother: “We hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.”
From police circles it can be heard that it was about domestic violence: the alleged perpetrator was angry that his wife was visiting these dance halls. Regardless of the possible motive, this act is being debated in other, larger contexts. “We have to talk about racially motivated violence against Asians,” says Asian Congresswoman Judy Chu to the SZ. She was once the mayor of Monterey Park and still lives there today: “It’s a tranquil place. Tourists come because it has the best Asian restaurants. It should be a weekend of joy, thousands of visitors were in Monterey Park on Saturday afternoon. Why Is something like this happening right now, right here?”
Monterey Park is known for the largest, happiest Chinese New Year celebrations in the Los Angeles area. After the deadly attack in the dance hall, everything was canceled.
(Photo: Nick Ago/Imago/USA today Network)
Chu fears new prejudices about the headline: “Asians shoot ten Asians.” After such an act, memories of the 1992 race riots boil up. It was primarily about police violence and racism by whites towards people of color; one unforgettable image, however: Asians on the roofs of houses, shooting at everything that moves on the streets. Some resentment has remained, and it was fueled during the pandemic by then US President Donald Trump, who repeatedly spoke of the “China virus” or “Wuhan virus”. “There have been 11,500 racially motivated violent crimes against Asians in the United States since the pandemic began,” says Chu. There is nationalist-motivated violence by Asians against other Asians, which is why Monterey Park, with its 61,000 residents, is considered a model community for diversity. Japanese, Chinese, Korean characters can be seen on buildings. And now this assassination. It can break a lot.
As always after such crimes, it is also about the weapons in the USA. “Something needs to change urgently,” says Chu. “We need laws that are not politically motivated, but guided by common sense.” Anyone who knows the socio-political divide in this country asks: How is that supposed to work? Especially since supporters of loose gun laws cite the incident as a reason for more guns.
Take Bill, for example, the soldier who was withdrawing money next to the dance hall when the shots rang out. The police reacted quickly and were at the scene three minutes after the first emergency call – but ten people died. “It’s taking too long, I can’t count on that. I have to defend myself,” he says. He had a gun in his truck. When it comes down to it in this country, when the pap-pap-pap-pap-pap-pap-pap isn’t a firecracker, then you’re on your own and need a gun.
Instead of thousands of tourists, as usual, a few residents came to the street corner where the dance hall is on Sunday. They commemorate the victims, hug each other. They don’t want to explain and they don’t want to debate. What they want is the opposite of pap-pap-pap-pap-pap-pap-pap. You want silence.