Ballroom Champion Who Is Instructor At Chinese Lunar New Year Massacre Dance Studio Pays Tribute
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An instructor at a ballroom dance studio where a gunman opened fire during a Chinese Lunar New Year celebration last night paid tribute to the ten dead and ten wounded.
Liana Bakhtiarova, who was not present at the time of the shooting, is a US ballroom champion and is among the top 22 ballroom dancers in the world.
“A prayer for all dear friends and colleagues involved in the mass shooting at the Star Dance studio in Monterey Park,” he wrote on Instagram the morning after the deadly attack. ‘What a sad day for our industry.’
Bakhtiarova teaches at the Chinese-owned Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park in the 100 block of West Garvey Avenue, about seven miles east of downtown Los Angeles.
Twenty minutes later, another dance hall about three miles to the north was also attacked, but it remains unclear if the incidents are connected. No one was injured in the second incident.
Liana Bakhtiarova (right), an instructor at the ballroom dance studio where a gunman opened fire during the Lunar New Year celebration last night, has paid tribute to the ten killed and ten injured. She appears here with her dance partner Valeriu Ursache (left)
Bakhtiarova teaches classes at the Chinese-owned Star Ballroom Dance in Monterey Park, in the 100 block of West Garvey Avenue.
On Saturday night, Star Dance Studio was hosting a Chinese Lunar New Year celebration when at around 10:20 p.m., an hour after the event had officially ended, a gunman walked in and began shooting indiscriminately.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said the suspect is Asian, between the ages of 30 and 50, and did not have an assault rifle.
About 20 minutes after the Star Studio shooting, an Asian suspect with a firearm entered another dance studio in the neighboring suburb of Alhambra. No one in the second studio was killed because it has been closed indefinitely.
“Some individuals took the firearm from him and that individual left,” Luna said. Police have yet to confirm whether the two incidents are related.
That suspect is still on the run.
In September 2022, Bakhtiarova was the winner of the US Dance Championship.
The Star Ballroom website (pictured) describes the venue as one of the largest studios in Los Angeles.
“A prayer for all dear friends and colleagues involved in the mass shooting at the Star Dance studio in Monterey Park,” he wrote on Instagram the morning after the attack.
The Lai Lai Ballroom and Studio in Alhambra, the second target location, is located in the 100 block of South Garfield Avenue, about three miles north of Star and a ten-minute drive.
The Star Ballroom Studio opened a decade ago and is owned by Maria Liang, a former banker at East West Bank, a bank popular with the Chinese-American community.
While in China, she worked for Nike and Australian energy company Norton Christensen, but her passion for dance led her to open Star Ballroom Dance Studio a decade ago.
Since then, it has become one of the most popular professional ballroom studios in Southern California. Their website describes the place as one of the largest studios in Los Angeles.
‘Star Ballroom Dance Studio was founded in Los Angeles 30 years ago. With 10,000 square feet of space, it is one of the largest dance studios in the city, with dozens of teachers and performers from Europe, America and China,” he said.
In September 2022, Bakhtiarova, with her dance partner Valeriu Ursache, was a winner of the United States Dance Championships.
Star Ballroom owner Maria Liang, who left a successful career in business to open the ballroom in 2013.
Twenty minutes later, another dance hall about three miles to the north was also attacked, but it remains unclear if the incidents are connected.
Community members were dancing and celebrating after a Lunar New Year celebration that had ended about an hour before the shooting.
The interior of the Star Ballroom
The head of the Los Angeles Chinese Chamber of Commerce, Chester Chong, told a local ABC7 plug who believes the massacre was not a hate crime, but rather a case of domestic unrest taken to the extreme.
He said he believed the shooting was caused by hatred between a “wife and husband” and that it was a “personal case” taken to horrific extremes.
Scott Wiese, the Monterey Park police chief, said that while it is now safe to attend Lunar New Year celebrations in other parts of the community, the investigation launched today is extensive and “will last for many days and perhaps many months”. ‘
Wiese said law enforcement is seeking information from the community and hopes members will work closely with law enforcement as the search continues.