(Monterey Park) The suspected shooter in the California Lunar New Year mass shooting is dead, after apparently committing suicide, Los Angeles police said Sunday.
“The suspect was shot and pronounced dead at the scene,” said Sheriff Robert Luna, who described a chase that ended with a gunshot from the white pickup truck. male.
The man was identified as 72-year-old Huu Can Tran.
“I can confirm that there are no other suspects in this shooting,” Luna said, adding that the motive for the attack in Monterey Park, which killed 10 people, was not yet known.
” The investigation is still ongoing. Sheriff’s Homicide Detectives are working around the clock to gather additional information and determine the motive for this extremely tragic event.
United States President Joe Biden immediately ordered the lowering of flags adorning public buildings until January 26, in tribute to the victims.
The police tracking the alleged shooter surrounded a vehicle on Sunday during a long face-to-face, at the end of which they found a lifeless body behind the wheel, according to images broadcast by television.
A manhunt was held earlier Sunday to arrest the suspect in the latest mass shooting to occur in an American community. The suspect was described as an Asian male.
Before pinning down a white van in a parking lot, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said authorities were looking for a van of that color that was allegedly observed by witnesses.
PHOTO FREDERIC J. BROWN, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The shooting occurred near a place where the Lunar New Year had just been celebrated in Monterey Park, a city of some 60,000 inhabitants, mostly of Asian origin.
“We believe there is a person inside this vehicle. We do not know his state of health, but we will maneuver as safely as possible to try to identify him. Is this our suspect? It’s possible,” Luna said.
Members of the tactical squad eventually entered the vehicle and searched it before withdrawing.
Authorities said they knew the suspect’s name, but declined to release it so as not to jeopardize a possible arrest. They did, however, post a photograph of an Asian man wearing glasses and a winter cap. The image was taken in Alhambra.
The individual would have tried to continue his carnage after the first killing.
A man armed with a gun entered a dance hall in the Alhambra 20 to 30 minutes later. Customers fought with him to get his gun out of his hands. The man then fled in a vehicle, the sheriff said.
Authorities believe the two events may be connected.
Sheriff Luna declined to specify the type of firearm that was found at the Alhambra. He added that investigators do not believe the weapon used by the shooter in Monterey Park was an assault rifle.
Capt. Andrew Meyer of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department said Sunday the injured were taken to hospital and their conditions range from stable to critical. He said ten of the victims died at the scene.
Meyer said people were “running out of the venue screaming” when officers arrived around 10:30 p.m. Saturday. He said officers entered the ballroom while firefighters treated the injured.
Monterey Park is a city of about 60,000 people, with a large Asian population. It is located about ten miles from downtown Los Angeles.
It is the fifth mass shooting in the United States alone this month, and the deadliest since 21 people were killed at a school in Uvalde, Texas, according to a database from The Associated Press/USA Today, on the massacres in the United States. The latest violence comes two months after five people were killed at a Colorado Springs nightclub.
Seung Won Choi, owner of the Clam House seafood restaurant across from where the shooting took place, told the Los Angeles Times that three people rushed into his business and told him to close the door. They told him that there was a shooter, with several bullets on him.
Wong Wei, who lives nearby, told the Los Angeles Times that her friend was in a bathroom at a dance club that night when the shooting broke out. When she came out, she saw the gunman and three bodies. She then fled to his home around 11 p.m., Wei said, adding that her friends told her the shooter appeared to be firing indiscriminately from a long gun.
“They don’t know why, so they run,” he told the newspaper.
The shooting took place near where thousands of people had attended a Lunar New Year celebration. Saturday was the start of the two-day festival, which is one of the biggest Lunar New Year events in Southern California.
Videos posted on social media showed people on stretchers and being placed in ambulances. Other photos showed victims bloodied and treated by Monterey Park firefighters in a parking lot.
With Agence France-Presse
Justin Trudeau is ‘heartbroken’
PHOTO DARRYL DYCK, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Justin Trudeau on the sidelines of one of Canada’s largest Lunar New Year parades in Vancouver’s Chinatown on Sunday
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was “heartbroken” thinking of the victims of the shootings in California on Saturday.
Trudeau, who attends one of Canada’s largest Lunar New Year parades in Vancouver’s Chinatown, said it’s the first time since the start of the pandemic that celebrations can take place in face-to-face.
But the news of the killings, he said, brought sadness to the heart of an event that was to be filled with joy.
“We will be there to offer all the support that Canada can give,” he told reporters on Saturday, before the parade began.
He sent his condolences to the relatives of those who lost their lives.
This year, thousands of Canadians are gathering across the country to celebrate the arrival of the Year of the Rabbit.
The Canadian Press