Remember This Walmart Shooting Memorial Video By A Montwood High School Graduate?
Two years after the mass shooting at the Cielo Vista Walmart on August 3, 2019, there are still so many people who are trying to rebuild their lives. That beautiful Saturday morning in August really shook our city to its core. There were so many people killed and wounded, so many people who were in the store when the whole world came crashing down around them. Two years later, El Paso has sadly become another city that is synonymous with the phrase 'mass shooting', something we never thought could happen here. There are people who grew up here but don't live in El Paso anymore, but they still want El Pasoans to know that they are in their hearts and minds.
One of the those people is Khayla Jordan. The 2011 Montwood High School graduate released a memorial to the victims of the Walmart shooting last year. The video is filled with interpretive dance performed to a song by Khalid. I spoke with Khayla and asked how she came up with the concept for the video. She told me that she filmed it over the course of two days when she was home visiting her parents in El Paso late last year.
The first half of the video was filmed in two hours early morning at the Walmart memorial, then the second half was filmed in another two hours at sunset at Scenic Drive. Over the next few months, Khayla edited the footage with the help of El Paso-based production team, Bored Film Studios.
Most of the dancers in Khayla's video were people she knew from when she danced with them at various El Paso studios. Khayla said she grew up doing folklorico and wanted folklorico dancers for the Scenic Drive scene. Khayla said growing up in El Paso, the tragedy of August 3, 2019 affected her deeply and creating this video was a way for her to process her feelings and honor the victims in her own personal way.