He did 10 dead Saturday night in a Californian dance hall, in full celebration of the Lunar New Year, and 10 injured. The suspect of the California killings was found dead on Sunday after committing suicide, surrounded by police.
“The suspect sustained gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene,” said Sheriff Robert Luna, who described a manhunt that ended with a shot fired from inside the white pickup truck. the man, who therefore apparently committed suicide.
The latter, of Asian origin and 72 years old, was identified as Huu Can Tran. He was the only suspect in the shooting, Sheriff Robert Luna said, adding that the motive for the attack in Monterey Park on Lunar New Year’s Day was not yet known and an investigation was ongoing.
The hunt for the alleged shooter, covered live by several media, ended in Torrance, just over 40 km from Monterey Park. His vehicle was spotted by police, who followed him into the parking lot of a shopping center where they surrounded him. The police then heard a loud noise coming from inside. Nearly two hours later, with SWAT officers pointing their guns at the van, others smashed the driver’s side window. They discovered a dead body in the van. “Several pieces of evidence” linking Tran to the Monterey Park dance studio have been found, Luna said, without providing further details. They also found a handgun.
“A weapon that was snatched from his hands”
On Saturday evening, tens of thousands of people had just gathered near the scene of the shooting for the Lunar New Year festivities. Monterey Park in East Los Angeles hosts a major New Year’s Eve festival each year, drawing as many as 100,000 visitors a day, according to the city.
According to the owner of a nearby restaurant quoted by the Los Angeles Times, three people ran into his establishment at the time of the shooting and asked him to lock the door. These three people said that there was a man with a semi-automatic rifle and loaded with ammunition, Seung Won Choi told the newspaper.
Responding to the first emergency calls at 10:20 p.m. (7:20 a.m. Sunday morning, French time), the police found ten dead people, five women and five men, in a dance studio. At least ten other injured people were later hospitalized in “stable to critical” condition. Sunday evening, seven people remained hospitalized.
VIDEO. Deadly shooting in California: at least 10 dead on Lunar New Year’s Eve
According to CCTV footage, which had been released, the shooter was an Asian man wearing a beanie and wearing glasses. Three people who knew Tran told CNN he was once a regular at the Monterey Park dance hall, where he gave informal dance lessons and met his ex-wife. The release of the footage confirmed the link between Huu Can Tran and an attempted shooting at another dance studio in nearby Alhambra. 17 minutes after the Monterey Park shooting, an Asian man entered the dance studio with a gun, and two people managed to snatch the gun from him before he fled. Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna estimated that there would have been more victims if these two “heroes” had not intervened.
The weapon found is not an assault rifle, he said on Sunday, but “a semi-automatic assault pistol with magazine (…) to which was attached a long-lasting high-capacity magazine”. Either way, he’s in violation of California law, which only allows guns that can hold ten bullets. “California has some of the toughest gun laws in the country, but look what we just had today,” Luna said, “the status quo doesn’t work.”
Loaded with ammunition
The United States pays a very heavy price for the spread of firearms in its territory and the ease with which Americans have access to them. This same Saturday evening, 12 people were wounded by bullets in a nightclub in Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana, a new illustration, after the story of the 6 year old boy who shot his teacher that no place in American daily life seems safe.
About 49,000 people died from firearms in 2021 in the United States, compared to 45,000 in 2020, which was already a record year. This represents more than 130 deaths per day, more than half of which are suicides.
In the wake of the latest police announcements, United States President Joe Biden has ordered the flags adorning federal public buildings to be lowered to half-mast until Thursday evening “as a mark of respect for the victims of the senseless acts of violence”. .