Alhambra resident Alice Lin is still mourning the death of friends and dance classmates from the Jan. 21 mass shooting at Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park.
The shooting, amid the city’s Lunar New Year celebration, left 11 dead, many injured and a community shaken for much of the year since.
“Often, I would think what we could do to prevent that tragedy from happening,” Lin said. “We could not prevent the killer from coming… but I believe that there is something we can do to help ourselves.”
On Saturday, Dec. 2, more than 50 Asian seniors — including Lin — gathered at Sierra Vista Park in Monterey Park to participate in a free senior-focused self-defense class.
They had a special guest – someone who amid the tragedy of that day saved lives, and brought an empowering message on Saturday.
Brandon Tsay, the man who stopped the Star Dance Studio shooter in the front of his family’s Lai Lai Dance Studio in Alhambra, was the featured speaker at the lesson.
“I hold senior citizens in high regard,” Tsay told the group. “I think that uplifting and empowering them to fight back and breaking the stigma of being vulnerable is important.”
In a story now known from Alhambra to the White House, it was the then 26-year-old, soft-spoken man who wrested a semi-automatic weapon from the intruder who just minutes earlier had gunned down 11 people at the Monterey Park ballroom dance floor.
The black-and-white security camera images still remain in collective memory: Tsay, acting on a split-second life-or-death decision, confronted the gunman, who moments before pointed the weapon directly at him. Tsay lunged toward him. Arms outstretched. The struggle ensued in the Lai Lai lobby: Tsay, who’d never held a gun in his life, was determined to stop him.
And he did.
Nearly a year after the Star Dance Studio Shooting, the events of that night were still fresh in many attendees’ minds, and Tsay found a receptive audience.
Lin, over…
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