By MIKEY HIRANO CULROSS, Rafu Staff Writer
At last Sunday’s vigil to mark one year since the mass shooting that claimed 11 lives at a Monterey Park dance studio, Francois Ung struggled to hold back tears as he offered his thoughts to the large gathering.
“I’m not a dancer,” Ung admitted, but Shally, his wife of more than 30 years, loved to spend weekends at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio. She and her dance partner, Yu Lun “Andy” Kao, were regulars at the popular club on Garvey Avenue.
“I met Andy and we become very good friends,” Ung remembered. “Our friendship grew to become like family, since he didn’t have a wife or children.”
The mood at the ballroom was more festive than usual on the evening of Jan. 21, 2023, as the community was celebrating the Lunar New Year. Then a gunman burst in and began shooting indiscriminately. As dancers and guests scattered, Kao shielded Shally from the flying bullets and was killed.
Shally survived the massacre but her emotional recovery has been difficult. As a tribute to Kao, she set up a fundraising effort at Arcadia Donuts, the small shop she and her husband own and operate on Las Tunas Boulevard in Arcadia. Donations to help Kao’s family take care of expenses streamed in from customers, a few coins and dollars at a time.
Just hours after he delivered his comments at the vigil, someone smashed a window of Ung’s car as it was parked in front of the donut shop in the early hours of Monday and stole his laptop computer and around $2,000 in cash that had been collected for the Kao fund.
“When I lifted my head to look at the [security video], I saw the thief running,” Ung said in a post online. “I ran to check my car and I saw the driver’s side window broken.”
He believes the suspect had been watching him from across the street and made a move once Ung had disappeared into the store.
“I’m hurt,” Ung said later. “Of course I’m hurt. I’m sad and hurt. Why these kind of people do that?”
Customers of Arcadia Donuts shared their disappointment.
“It’s just really, really sad,” one customer told ABC7. “How cruel can one be?”
To replace the stolen money and continue efforts to assist Kao and the other victims and survivors of last year’s shooting, Ung has set up a GoFundMe page at: https://gofund.me/9903cbf1
This publication was supported in whole or in part by funding provided by the State of California, administered by the California State Library.