10 killed in US mass shooting during Lunar New Year party
GUNMAN BEHIND MONTEREY PARK DANCE CLUB MASSACRE STILL AT LARGE
Agunman killed 10 people and wounded 10 others at a Los Angeles-area ballroom dance club following a Lunar New Year celebration on Saturday night, setting off a manhunt for the suspect, described as an Asian male, in the latest mass shooting tragedy in an American community.
Capt Andrew Meyer of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department said yesterday that the wounded were taken to hospitals and their conditions range from stable to critical. He said the 10 people died at the scene in the city of Monterey Park.
Meyer said people were “pouring out of the location screaming” when officers arrived on the scene at around 10.30pm. He said officers then went into the dance ballroom as firefighters treated the wounded.
The Lunar New Year celebration had attracted thousands. Monterey Park is a city of about 60,000 people with a large Asian population about 16km from downtown Los Angeles.
Capt Andrew Meyer of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department said people were “pouring out of the location screaming” when officers arrived on the scene at around 10.30pm.
Fifth mass shooting of the month
It marked the fifth mass shooting in the US this month and the deadliest since 21 people were killed in a school in Uvalde, Texas, last May according to The Associated Press/ USA Today database on mass killings in the US.
Local resident Wong Wei told the Los Angeles Times his friend had been at the dance club, and had been in the bathroom when the shooting erupted.
When she emerged, she saw a man carrying a long gun and firing indiscriminately, as well as the bodies of three people, two of them women and one person who he said was the boss of the club.
The shooting occurred near where thousands of people had attended a Lunar New Year celebration.
Videos posted on social media showed people being loaded onto stretchers and placed into ambulances. Other photos showed bloodied and bandaged victims being treated by Monterey Park firefighters in a parking lot.
Gun violence is a huge problem in the United States, which saw 647 mass shootings last year, according to the Gun Violence Archive website, defined as an incident with four or more people shot or killed, not including the shooter. More than 44,000 people died from gunshot wounds in 2022.