Years ago I used to frequent a tattoo parlor called Sol Tribe on S. Broadway that sat next to the Sweet Action Ice Cream . On a number of occasions I had some brief verbal exchanges with Alicia Cardenas , who I came to recognize as a pillar of strength and insight of a teacher in her community. She opened her first tattoo space at 19, later spending 15 years running the space I once knew on S. Broadway.
Last night, December 27, 2021 her and four others were gunned down in a shooting spree by some asshole from another tattoo shop. All day I’ve been seeing memorials and fundraisers for Alicia Cardenas, Jimmy and Alyssa Maldinado and other victims in the community. Other tattoo shops closing today in a moment of silence.
A burlesque dancer me and my husband used to go see years reported on social media that at Camp Christmas they got an order for a shelter in place.
All the shootings occurred in spaces I’d been known to lurk, and a few people who had shared kind words with me long ago were snuffed out when they had so much more they were ready to do here.