Lunar New Year shooting: alleged shooter found dead; motive unclear

MONTEREY PARK, California. – Authorities were looking for a motive for the perpetrator who killed 10 people at a ballroom dance club in the Los Angeles area during Lunar New Year celebrations, murders that have sparked fear in Asian American communities and cast a shadow over festivities across the country.

The suspect, 72-year-old Huu Kang Tran, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on Sunday in a van that authorities said he was fleeing from after he was prevented from attacking another dance hall. The New York Times reported that a man whose family runs the establishment snatched the gun from his assailant.

The Monterey Park massacre was the fifth mass murder in the country this month and was one of California’s biggest celebrations for a holiday celebrated in many Asian cultures, dealing another blow to a community that has been the target of high-profile violence in recent years. .

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It also became the deadliest attack since May 24, when 21 people were killed at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

Very little is known about Tran or his connection to the target community and dance halls. Public records show that he once had addresses in Monterey Park and neighboring towns.

But Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said the motive behind the attack, which injured 10 people, remains unclear. Speaking at a press conference Sunday evening, Luna said that all those killed were over 50 years old. There were no other suspects at large, the sheriff said.

The suspect had what Luna described as a semi-automatic pistol with an extended magazine, and a second pistol was found in the van where Tran died.

Monterey Park Police Chief Scott Wiese said Sunday night that within three minutes of receiving the call, officers arrived at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park. There they found a carnage inside and people trying to escape through all the doors.

“When they came to the parking lot, it was chaos,” Wiese said.

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About 20 to 30 minutes after the first attack, the gunman entered the Lai Lai ballroom in the nearby town of Alhambra. But, as Luna said, two people snatched the weapon from him.

The Times reported that after the shooter entered the club, he pointed his gun at Brandon Tsai, who works several days a week at the club founded by his grandparents. Tsai said he acted on instinct, rushing to grab the gun when he felt the shooter wanted to hurt people. The two fought before Tsai said he got gun control.

While police said more than one person was involved, Tsai and his family said CCTV footage showed the 26-year-old computer coder single-handedly prevented further tragedy.

According to eyewitnesses, the suspect then fled in a white van.

The van was found in Torrance, another area with many Asian Americans, about 22 miles (35 km) from this second location.

After the car was surrounded for several hours, law enforcement officers surrounded it and entered it. The man’s body appeared to have fallen onto the wheel and was later removed. Members of the SWAT team looked through the contents of the van before leaving.

The Sheriff’s Department previously released photographs of the suspected Asian, apparently taken from a security camera.

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Congresswoman Judy Chu said she still has questions about the attack, but she hopes residents feel safe now.

“The community was in fear, thinking they shouldn’t go to any events because there was an active shooter,” Chu said at a news conference Sunday.

“What was this shooter’s motive?” she said. “Did he have a mental illness? Was he a domestic rapist? How did he get this weapon and was it legal or not?

Monterey Park is a city of approximately 60,000 people on the eastern edge of Los Angeles populated mostly by Asian immigrants from China or first-generation Asian Americans. The shooting took place in the heart of the city, where red lanterns decorated the streets in honor of the Lunar New Year celebration. The police car was parked near a large banner reading “Happy Year of the Rabbit!”

The celebration in Monterey Park is one of the largest in California. Two days of festivities were planned, attended by up to 100,000 people in previous years. But officials canceled Sunday events because of the shooting.

Tony Lai, 35, from Monterey Park, was stunned when he went out for a morning walk and found out that the sounds he heard at night were gunshots.

“I thought maybe it was fireworks. I thought maybe it had something to do with the Lunar New Year,” he said. “And we don’t even have a lot of fireworks here. It’s strange to see this. It’s really safe here. We are right in the center of the city, but it’s really safe.”

The Associated Press/USA Today database of US massacres shows that 2022 was one of the country’s worst years, with 42 such attacks, the second-highest number since the tracker’s inception in 2006. The database lists the massacres as four. people are killed, not counting the perpetrator.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom visited Monterey Park on Sunday, meeting with victims and their families, as well as local authorities.

President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland have been briefed on the situation, aides said. Biden said he and First Lady Jill Biden were thinking about the dead and wounded.

The website of the Star ballroom dance studio says that on Saturday from 20:00 to 23:30, an event called “Starry Night” is being held. small businesses whose signs are in English and Chinese. Cantonese and Mandarin are widely spoken, Chinese holidays are celebrated, and Chinese films are regularly shown in the city.

Winn Liau, 57, who lives about two blocks from the Monterey Park studio, said she was shocked that such a crime could happen, especially during the Lunar New Year celebrations.

“The Chinese consider Chinese New Year to be very, very special,” a time when “you don’t do anything that brings bad luck for the whole year,” she said.

AP journalists Andrew Dalton, Jae S. Hong and Eugene Garcia contributed. AP journalist Julie Watson contributed from San Diego.