Killing of Auxiliary Bishop David O'Connell Compounds Grief in San Gabriel Valley Weeks After Monterey Park Massacre

Auxiliary Bishop David O'Connell attended a memorial Mass on Jan. 27 for one of the 11 people killed at a Monterey Park dance studio. Three weeks later, on Sunday, Feb. 19, Masses were being said for him.

The San Gabriel Valley is widely seen as a safe and quiet place where families settle in peace. In under a month, though, it has seen a mass shooting and the fatal shooting of O'Connell, a well-loved Roman Catholic bishop in Los Angeles County. The back-to-back losses have left residents with what the article's reporting describes as mourning whiplash, and the effects are being felt in the suburbs of Monterey Park and Hacienda Heights and across the region's Catholic community.

The Monterey Park shooting took place on Jan. 21 at Star Ballroom Dance Studio. The gunman, Huu Can Tran, shot himself the next day after law enforcement surrounded him. O'Connell was shot and killed at his Hacienda Heights home at about 1 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 18. Sheriff's deputies arrested Carlos Medina, whose wife was O'Connell's housekeeper, at the couple's Torrance home at 9 a.m. on Monday, Feb. 20.

At the time of his death, O'Connell led the parish at St. John's Vianney in Hacienda Heights, though he was known and loved in Catholic congregations across Los Angeles. Resident Patricia Maravilla, who has lived in the valley all her life, said she first thought news of his death was "a bad joke." She cannot recall a bloodier month there. "For somebody to be shot, in this neighborhood, you just don't expect it," she said.

Monterey Park Councilmember Henry Lo, who was the city's mayor when the massacre happened, called the bishop's killing "so senseless and so mind boggling." He noted that the violence fits a national pattern, pointing out that 2023 has already seen more mass shootings in the United States than days. "No community is immune from gun violence," he said, adding that "there is no playbook for what our communities have gone through."

West Covina resident Johnny Flores, a devout Catholic, said he was surprised only that it happened locally. He grew up in East L.A., spent 16 years in a gang and says he found God and Catholicism in prison. He said he owned at least 50 unregistered guns in those years and that firearms remain easy to obtain. He has not heard a single gunshot in his 10 years in West Covina, he said.

Mourners have again gathered at a makeshift memorial. Outside the Star dance studio, a site that hosted vigils, religious ceremonies and a visit from Vice President Kamala Harris, a similar space has grown at Janlu and Los Robles avenues outside O'Connell's home. Flowers and candles that began appearing Saturday night now fill the block, and visitors come day and night to pray, cry, finish a rosary and keep the candles lit. On Sunday afternoon, Father Albert Alvenido and members of the Sacred Heart Church youth ministry held a prayer service there, and Archbishop Jose Gomez dedicated the 10 a.m. Mass at Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels to O'Connell. Nearly a month earlier, O'Connell had helped officiate a vigil Mass for the Monterey Park victims at St. Stephen Martyr Catholic Church.

As in Monterey Park, residents are waiting for a motive. Lo said communities must wrestle with questions of why it happened and whether intervention was possible, even after a suspect is in custody. The Monterey Park tragedy has already prompted efforts to raise money for those affected and to push for stricter gun laws, and O'Connell's death is likely to prompt action as well.

O'Connell was known as a humanitarian. He served at five South Los Angeles churches during the early-1990s surge in gun violence, founded and chaired the interdiocesan SoCal Immigration Task Force, and helped migrant children who were in Los Angeles without their parents. He donated clothes to homeless people and helped distribute free food. Therese Funk, executive director of Counseling Partners of Los Angeles, said it is now up to those who remain "to keep his mission alive." Flores said he takes comfort in believing that O'Connell, being so close to the Lord, likely did not fear death.