California gunman found dead in van after killing 10 in Chinese New Year mass shooting
A suspected gunman who killed 10 people in a Chinese New Year mass shooting in California fatally shot himself in his van as officers closed in.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said the man was found dead in the vehicle he used to flee the scene of an attempted second shooting.
The suspected gunman was identified as 72-year-old Huu Can Tran.
Sheriff Luna said no other suspects are still at large.
Earlier on Sunday police surrounded the van with tactical vehicles and bomb squad trucks.
Sherriff Luna said the earlier shooting at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park left five women and five men dead and wounded another 10 people.
Then 20 to 30 minutes later, a man with a gun entered the Lai Lai Ballroom in nearby Alhambra.
Authorities believe the two events are connected but have offered no details about a motive.
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The suspect entered the Alhambra club with a gun, and people wrested the weapon away from him before he fled, Mr Luna said.
The shooting sent a wave of fear through Asian American communities in the Los Angeles area and cast a shadow over Lunar New Year festivities around the country. Other cities sent extra officers to watch over the celebrations.
The massacre was the nation’s fifth mass killing this month.
Monterey Park is a city of about 60,000 people on the eastern edge of Los Angeles and is composed mostly of Asian immigrants from China or first-generation Asian Americans.
The shooting happened in the heart of the city centre where red lanterns decorated the streets for the Lunar New Year festivities. A police car was parked near a large banner that read “Happy Year of the Rabbit!”
The celebration in Monterey Park is one of California’s largest and had attracted tens of thousands of people throughout the day.
Two days of festivities, which have been attended by as many as 100,000 people in past years, were planned. But officials cancelled Sunday’s events following the shooting.
The White House said US president Joe Biden had been briefed on the situation by homeland security adviser Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall.
