ALLEN — For eight days after the massacre, hundreds of people cried on Cheryl Jackson’s shoulders as she manned a makeshift memorial outside Allen Premium Outlets, trying to make sense of the senseless. Monday, she said, felt like the first time she cried not only with her community, but for it.
On the one-year anniversary of the May 6, 2023, mass shooting, Jackson was among a few hundred people who gathered at the Credit Union of Texas Event Center to honor the victims, survivors, families and first responders with a time for “reflection, remembrance and healing.”
“I’m just praying that those I saw during that time really are healing, because it was a dark, dark time,” Jackson told The Dallas Morning News. “It has been a long and tough road to get here.”
It was once a normal, sunny Saturday afternoon before a man armed with an AR-15 fired dozens of shots into a crowd outside the mall. Eight people were killed, seven were wounded and hundreds more were traumatized.
Those killed were Kyu Cho, 37, Cindy Cho, 35, and their son James Cho, 3; sisters Daniela Mendoza, 11, and Sofia Mendoza, 8; Christian LaCour, 20; Aishwarya Thatikonda, 26; and Elio Cumana-Rivas, 32.
From behind a podium trimmed in flickering candles at the center of the dimly-lit arena, Allen Mayor Baine Brooks said the tragedy “lives heavy in our hearts.”
“It’s a day that forever changed the shape of many families and altered the lives of those who were wounded or experienced this event firsthand,” Brooks said.
The city is still grieving, Brooks said, adding his hope is that the event allowed the community to experience the healing that happens when people do hard things together, instead of doing them alone.
“May tonight be a part of the healing journey for Allen and for each person that’s present,” he said.
In the days and weeks after the shooting, the community — and people who showed support from near and far — coined the term “Allen strong” as their focus shifted to helping one another recover.
Rev. Mary Beth Hardesty-Crouch, lead pastor at First United Methodist Church in Allen, said she saw the event as a chance to give thanks for the ways people of differing faiths, cultures and backgrounds came together in a time of great need.
“Today, as we remember and give thanks, let us also recommit ourselves to cultivating a culture of empathy, understanding, and compassion,” Hardesty-Crouch said. “Let us stand as beacons of hope actively working to build a world where peace prevails over conflict, love triumphs over hate and may the light of remembrance and gratitude shine brightly.”
The Allen Philharmonic Orchestra then performed a piece it commissioned as a tribute to the eight killed. The victims were represented by eight soloists in the orchestra who played the flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, viola and cello.
The piece was named “In Lumine,” or “in light,” to represent the desire for the victims to be remembered as they lived, the city said in an announcement of the event. Lane Harder, senior lecturer and co-chair of music theory and composition at Southern Methodist University, composed the piece.
The Allen High School Varsity Men’s Choir also sang “Amazing Grace.”
Earlier in the day, a permanent memorial was unveiled in the northwest corner of the outlet mall, near Fatburger, where the gunman bled out after he was shot by an Allen police officer. A temporary name plate reads “Always Remembered. May 6, 2023,” and will soon be replaced by a permanent bronze plaque. At the top, eight heavy wind chimes sway in the breeze, each representing a life cut short.
“I’m proud to live in a community where we can come together to hold each other, to pray for each other, and to sit in silence with each other when there are simply no words to say,” Brooks said at the conclusion of the event. “My hope is that each of you were reminded this evening that you are not alone and as you leave this room, you’re still not alone.”
Brooks called on the community to continue demonstrating the love and strength it has shared over the past year.
“Allen is stronger together,” he said.
In a moment of reflection outside the arena, Jackson said she had mixed feelings about the first anniversary. The performances were beautiful, and she felt lighter having had the space to finally lay down some of the burden she’d been carrying all this time. But hundreds of attendees should’ve been thousands, Jackson said, and a 30-minute program didn’t feel like nearly enough.
She worries nothing could ever do it justice.
“What happened in the city was not a momentary thing, it was a life-changing ordeal for an entire community,” Jackson said.
A day of remembrance. A lifetime of mourning.
