Ballroom gunman shot ten dead and then ‘killed himself’
A GUNMAN who shot dead ten people in a ballroom dance studio was last night believed to have killed himself.
After killing five women and five men and injuring another ten at Chinese New Year celebrations in Monterey Park, California, the shooter is thought to have been found dead in his vehicle following a 12-hour manhunt.
Aerial footage showed armoured police cars and officers surrounding a white van in the Californian city of Torrance – 48 kilometres from where the shootings took place.
Witnesses said they heard a shot from the van before officers entered the vehicle.
Shortly after, local news stations reported that a body had been found inside.
Sheriff Robert Luna described the stand-off as a ‘barricaded suspect situation’.
But he said that although the van resembled a ‘van of interest’, the identity and condition of its driver was unknown. Mr Luna said that 20 to 30 minutes after the fatal shootings at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio, a man with a gun entered the Lai Lai Ballroom around 3km away in Alhambra. Mr Luna said he was not yet certain if the two were related. No one was killed at the Lai Lai Ballroom.
The gunman – described as an ‘Asian male’ – opened fire at the studio in Monterey Park, about 11km east of Los Angeles, at around 10.20pm.
Thousands of people had flocked to the area for Lunar New Year celebrations.
Captain Andrew Meyer, of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, said people were ‘pouring out of the location screaming’ when police arrived. Officers entered the venue as firefighters treated the wounded.
Captain Meyer said the wounded were taken to hospitals and their conditions range from stable to critical.
The ten people killed, whose ages are unknown, died at the scene, he added. Authorities have said they are investigating ‘every angle’ to determine whether or not the shooting was racially motivated.
But Chester Chong, local resident and leader of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Los Angeles, told a local ABC7 outlet that he believed the massacre was not a hate crime but rather an instance of domestic unrest taken to the extreme.
He said he believed the shooting
Investigating ‘every angle’ ‘Horrific and heartless act’
came about because of hatred between a ‘wife and husband’. Monterey Park is a city of 60,000 on the edge of Los Angeles and is home to many immigrants from China and first-generation Asian Americans.
California governor Gavin Newsom said: ‘Monterey Park should have had a night of joyful celebration of the Lunar New Year. Instead, they were the victims of a horrific and heartless act of gun violence.’ The massacre was the fifth mass killing in the US this month.