By: Kyle Xu
Lloyd Gock was struggling with depression, at least until he visited the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park.
His clothing company was struggling. He was under a cloak of despair. He went to a doctor, who suggested taking medication. Nothing was working; he would sometimes think about ending his life at will.
But as the 67-year-old lover of salsa dance found others of his age at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio and Lai Lai Ballroom in Alhambra, his mental health started to improve.
“Dancing helped me to get out of my depression,” he said. “I wanted to convey how dancing is so important to us as a community. As we get older, this is our only livelihood.”
All was well— or at least getting better—for Lloyd Gock until the night of January 21st.
The dancers were attending a Lunar New Year celebration at Star Ballroom when 72-year-old Huu Can Tran suddenly opened fire with a MAC-10 assault weapon. Tran was ruthless. He shot bullets across the room, reloaded, and then continued with the assault. He killed 10 people and injured nine, one of whom died later at the hospital. Tran killed himself when police cornered his van.
Now, six months later, many survivors of the shooting have been gravely injured—not just by the lasting bullet marks but also by the depths of depression and anxiety that the sudden attack instilled in their hearts.
However, some survivors have crawled out of the destruction and begun making a new community—forging new relationships and fighting for more gun control measures—and three survivors have even begun dancing again.
But though some managed to continue, others have been trapped in depression and pain. “They’re still very traumatized. Time helps to heal and it’s kind of fading away, but when they talk about it, it’s still like it was yesterday.”
This year, there have been no more than 400 mass shootings in the U.S., with Monterey Park being the 34th, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
When government officials visited Monterey Park, Gock told them how important it was to him to be able to rebuild his community. “If you stop dancing, then the shooter got what he wanted, which is to terrorize us into not being able to dance,” he said. “That was his whole main purpose. I was advocating for everyone to come back to dancing.”
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