California’s Monterey Park witnessed a horror night on Saturday when a mass shooting left 10 people dead and 10 others injured. The incident took place in a ballroom dance studio in the suburb of Los Angeles, home to a largely Asian American community.
The community was celebrating “Year of the Rabbit”, the Chinese lunar new year, with red lanterns and banners in Chinese characters. However, the same place turned grave after police vans, barricades and armed policemen took over.
This led to cancellation of the second day of Chinese Lunar New Year festival which is celebrated with much fervor.
According to the authorities, on Saturday night, a man wielding a gun barged into the ballroom and killed 10 people, including five men and five women and injured 10 others.
Police had identified a suspect as a 72-year-old Huu Can Tran, whom it located in the nearby city of Torrance. However, he killed himself by shooting as the police furthered toward his vehicle, said Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna.
Luna further added that police were in search of a wanted van and when they had located a van they pursued it and in the meantime heard a gunshot from within the van. “The suspect sustained a self-inflicted gunshot wound and was pronounced dead at the scene,” the county sheriff said.
Talking about the act by the deceased suspect, Luna said that after carrying out the crime in one dance hall, he went to another in neighboring Alhambra and entered it with a gun but escaped after being disarmed by two patrons.
He went on describing the incident. “When police arrived at the dance studio in Monterey Park less than three minutes after the first call for help, they came across a scene that none of them had been prepared for,” city police chief Scott Wiese said. The shooter had inflicted “extensive” carnage, leaving behind chaos as people fled the building with those dead and injured still inside.”
The alleged gunman used to be a regular customer at the dance hall where he met his former wife and even gave dance lessons.
Chester Chong proposed a potential explanation in front of the police cordon: the jealousy sparked in a man who wasn’t invited to a party where his wife was having fun.
Chong, the head of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Los Angeles, stated that the issue is that there are too many firearms in this nation.
According to the Gun Violence Archive, it defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more people are shot, excluding the shooter. The Monterey massacre is one of the deadliest in Californian history and was at least the 33rd in the United States so far this year. Many people who believed Monterey Park was a safe haven for the thriving Asian population that has made it their home were shocked by the violence.
