(Reuters) – The Los Angeles county coroner’s office on Monday began identifying the 10 people killed in the Lunar New Year massacre inside a popular dance parlor in Monterey Park, California.
The coroner’s office confirmed the names of two women – My Nhan, 65, and Lilan Li, 63 – who were among the patrons who died in Saturday’s shooting at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio.
While not releasing the other victims’ names, the coroner’s office said the five women and five men who were killed were all in their 50, 60s and 70s.
Nhan’s family said in a written statement released on Twitter that “we are starting the Lunar New Year broken.” They said she had visited the dance studio on weekends for many years and loved to dance.
Friends and frequenters of the ballroom identified another victim as Ming Wei Ma, believed to be in his 60s. He was a frequent presence at the dance studio, and friends told a CBS affiliate that he was among the first to rush the shooter.
“He was just caring, an ‘others first, people first’ kind of person,” Ma’s friend Eric Chen told local media.
Other victims’ identifications were withheld pending notification of next of kin.
The coroner’s office said one woman who died was in her 50s and two other women, in addition to the ones identified, were in their 60s. Three men killed were in their 70s and two were in their 60s.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh, Brendan O’Brien, Brad Brooks and Sharon Bernstein)
