- Police found the suspect dead after a fatal shot at Chinese New Year celebrations in Los Angeles.
- According to the authorities, the man was behind the wheel of a van and had executed himself. The alleged perpetrator was 72 years old and of Asian descent. His motive is still unclear.
- The attack had occurred in a suburb of the city in California. At least ten people were killed and ten others were injured, some seriously.
A white pickup truck believed to have been in the suspect was blocked from the front and rear by armored police vehicles in the town of Torrance, south of Los Angeles. The city is just over 40 km from Monterey Park, an Asian-majority city where the shooting occurred at a dance hall.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna previously announced in Monterey Park that police had launched a manhunt for the perpetrator.
Legend:
US media reports of a police operation in Torrence that could be related to the shooting.
ABC affiliate KABC via REUTERS
Police Chief Andrew Meyer of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department previously reported that the wounded had been taken to hospitals and their condition ranged from stable to critical. He reported ten people died at the scene in the city of Monterey Park. “When the officers arrived at the scene, they saw numerous people, visitors to the bar, screaming out of the bar,” Meyer said at the press conference.
The perpetrator fled and had not yet been caught, Meyer reported at the press conference early on Sunday morning (local time).
The search was for a man of Asian descent between the ages of 30 and 50. The motive for the crime is unclear. Sheriff Robert Luna said it was being investigated in all directions. Five women and five men were killed. Ten people were taken to hospitals with injuries, some of them life-threatening.
Man shot himself with an automatic weapon
The incident happened on Saturday evening shortly after 10 p.m. (local time, 7 a.m. CET on Sunday) in a dance hall in Monterey Park, an eastern suburb of the Pacific metropolis in the US state of California. Eyewitnesses report a man who shot himself with an automatic rifle.
Police are investigating whether there may have been a link between the Monterey Park incident and another incident in the neighboring city of Alhambra. A short time later, a man with a gun broke into a bar there. Visitors managed to take the gun from the man.
The owner of a restaurant near the crime scene said three people ran into his place and asked him to lock the door. They said the shooter carried so much ammunition that he could reload over and over again.
US President Joe Biden called on the people in Monterey Park to follow the instructions of the authorities and the police. “Jill and I are praying for those killed and injured in last night’s fatal shooting,” he wrote in a statement on Twitter.
A large Asian community lives in Monterey Park. According to the latest census, around two thirds of the approximately 60,000 inhabitants are of Asian descent. During the Chinese New Year celebrations, roads there are closed to traffic because of the festivities.
Tens of thousands of people had gathered earlier in the day for the two-day Chinese New Year celebrations, one of the largest in Southern California. These were canceled after the fatal incident.