A Buddhist disaster relief organization offers key support after Monterey Park shooting

The Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation, a global humanitarian organization, has mobilized relief efforts in a range of emergency and disaster events, including the 2000 Singapore Airlines crash that killed more than 80 people and the 2005 Glendale train crash that left 11 people dead.

But it had never, until now, responded to the scene of a mass shooting.

That changed when 72-year-old Huu Can Tran opened fire and killed 11 people—all in their 50s, 60s, and 70s—at Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park, a city in Los Angeles County’s San Gabriel Valley regarded as America’s first “suburban Chinatown.” Residents in the area were gearing up for the beginning of Lunar New Year festivities.