MONTEREY PARK, UNITED STATES (AFP) – The gunman believed to have killed 10 people during Lunar New Year celebrations in California shot himself dead as police moved in to arrest him, the local sheriff said.
An intensive manhunt began late on Saturday after a man opened fire inside a dance studio and club in Monterey Park, a city near Los Angeles with a large Asian community.
Witnesses said he had shot indiscriminately, and appeared to have a lot of ammunition.
Five men and five women were killed, most in their 50s or 60s, police said, with around 10 others injured.
The suspected gunman, identified by police as 72-year-old Huu Can Tran, then went to another dance venue a short distance away but was tackled and disarmed by people at the club before fleeing. Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said over the following hours police tracked a wanted van, which was later reported in Torrance, several kilometres south.
When officers approached, they heard one gunshot from within.
“The suspect sustained a self-inflicted gunshot wound and was pronounced dead at the scene,” Luna said.
“I can confirm that there are no outstanding suspects from the mass shooting incident.”
Luna said the reason behind the horrific attack, which came as Asian communities around the world celebrated Lunar New Year remained a mystery.
“The investigation is still ongoing. Sheriff’s homicide detectives are working around the clock gathering additional information and working on determining the motive behind this extremely tragic event,” he said.
Luna paid tribute to two people at the site of the second attempted attack. “I can tell you that the suspect walked in there, probably with the intent to kill more people, and two brave community members decided they were going to jump into action and disarm him.”
“They took possession of the weapon, and the suspect ran away.”
The weapon used was not an assault rifle, Luna said, but “a magazine-fed semi-automatic assault pistol… that had an extended large capacity magazine attached to it”. United States (US) President Joe Biden later on Sunday evening ordered all US flags to be lowered to half-staff until Thursday in honour of the victims.
“While there is still much we don’t know about the motive in this senseless attack, we do know that many families are grieving tonight, or praying that their loved one will recover from their wounds,” Biden said in a statement.
At a community support centre in Monterey Park, Joe Avalos of the Los Angeles Crisis Response Team said people were shaken and trying to piece together what had happened.
“We have one or two families here that have not been able to get in touch with their loved ones and they don’t know if they’re in the hospital or they’re dead,” he told AFP.
The Monterey Park shooting is the country’s deadliest since a gunman in Uvalde, Texas killed 21 people at an elementary school last May. Gun violence is a huge problem in the US, which last year saw 647 mass shootings, with at least four people shot or killed by a shooter, according to the Gun Violence Archive website.
