MONTEREY PARK, Calif. (AP) — A gunman killed 10 people and wounded 10 others after a Lunar New Year celebration at a Los Angeles area ballroom dance club. month.
Captain Andrew Meyer of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department said Sunday that the injured were taken to hospitals and their conditions ranged from stable to serious. He said 10 people died at the scene in the city of Monterey Park.
The mayor said people were “running away screaming” when officers arrived at about 10:30 p.m. Saturday. He said officers then went to the ballroom and found the victims being treated by firefighters.
The mayor gave no details of the male suspect or the weapon he used, or why police did not provide any information about the shooting for hours, while the shooter was on the run. He also said police were investigating another incident in the nearby city of Alhambra to see if it was connected.
The mayor said it was too early in the investigation to know whether the gunman knew anyone in the ballroom or if it was a hate crime.
The Lunar New Year celebrations attracted thousands of people.
Monterey Park is a city of approximately 60,000 people located on the eastern edge of Los Angeles. Most of its residents are Asian immigrants or their descendants, most of whom are Chinese. The dance studio in downtown Monterey Park is just a few blocks from City Hall on the main thoroughfare of Garvey Avenue, which is lined with strip malls filled with small businesses with signs in both English and Chinese. Both Cantonese and Mandarin are widely spoken, Chinese holidays are celebrated and Chinese films are shown in the city.
The tragedy marked not only the fifth mass murder in the US since the beginning of the year, but also the deadliest since May 24, 2022 — when 21 people were killed at a school in Uvalde, Texas, according to Associated Press/USA Today database The latest violence over mass killings in the US comes two months after five people were killed Colorado Springs Nightclub.
Seung Won Choi, who owns the Clam House Seafood Barbecue restaurant across from where the shooting took place, told Los Angeles Times That three men broke into his business and asked him to lock the door.
People told Choi that there was a shooter with a gun that had several rounds of ammunition.
Wong Wei, who lives nearby, told The Los Angeles Times that his friend was in the dance club’s bathroom the night the shooting began. When she came out, she said, she saw a gunman and three bodies.
The friend then fled to Wei’s house around 11 p.m. He said his friends told him the shooter appeared to be firing indiscriminately with a long gun.
The celebration is the biggest in Monterey Park lunar New Year Events in Southern California. Two days of festivities were planned but officials canceled Sunday’s events following the shooting.
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by Andrew Dalton. Contributed by Julie Watson.
