monterey park mass shooting

The suspect in Saturday night’s mass shooting at a dance studio in Monterey Park, California, died on Sunday morning of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna announced Sunday evening.

Luna said that at around 10:20 a.m., police officers in Torrance, a city about 30 miles away from Monterey Park, attempted to pull over a white cargo van possibly linked to the shooting. The driver pulled into a shopping center, and as the officers approached the vehicle, they heard a gunshot. After a SWAT team cleared the van, police found the suspect slumped over, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. Evidence found inside the vehicle connected the suspect — identified by Luna as Huu Can Tran, 72 — to the Monterey Park shooting and another incident in nearby Alhambra.

There are “no outstanding suspects” from the mass shooting, Luna said, adding that investigators are working on determining the motive “behind this extremely tragic event.”

The shooting took place at the Star Dance Studio in Monterey Park, a Los Angeles suburb with a large Asian population. Ten people were shot and killed and 10 others were wounded; Luna said seven of the victims remain hospitalized. Luna said families of the victims are still being notified, and it appears the deceased are “in their 50s, 60s, and maybe even some beyond there.”

The suspect entered the studio around 10:20 p.m., about an hour after a Lunar New Year festival that drew tens of thousands of people to Monterey Park ended. About 20 minutes later, the gunman walked into the Lai Lai Ballroom & Studio in nearby Alhambra, where “some individuals wrestled the firearm from him” and he fled, Luna said. No one there was injured.

A reporter asked Luna about gun violence, and the sheriff responded, “Gun violence needs to stop. There’s too much of it. … I think all of us need to take some ownership there. We really need to go back and look at what we do. California has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, yet look at what we had today. Let’s look across our nation, see what works and what doesn’t. I can tell you this — the status quo’s not working. We need to re-examine what we’re doing and what may work better, and I hope this tragedy doesn’t go on a long list of many others that we don’t even talk about until the next one comes up.”