Body is found in the search for LA shooter
Police Swat team find man linked to massacre at dance studio event held to celebrate Lunar New Year
A body has been found in the search for the man suspected of killing 10 people and wounding 10 more at a Lunar New Year celebration on the outskirts of LA. A man was discovered slumped in the driver’s seat of a white van stormed by police about 30 miles from where the mass shooting took place in Monterey Park. About an hour later, the LA Sheriff ’s department said on Twitter: “The SWAT operation for an armed suspect in Torrance has concluded, Neighbourhood safe.”
A BODY has been found in the search for the man suspected of killing 10 people and wounding 10 more at a Lunar New Year celebration on the outskirts of Los Angeles.
A man was discovered slumped in the driver’s seat of a white van stormed by a police Swat team in Torrance, about 30 miles away from where the mass shooting took place in Monterey Park.
About an hour later, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department Special Enforcement Bureau said on Twitter: “The Swat operation for an armed suspect in Torrance has concluded. Neighbourhood safe.”
Addressing the van during a press conference carried out during the same time as the Swat team raid, Sheriff Robert Luna said: “Could this be our suspect? Possibly.”
The mass shooting – the worst in the US since last May – happened at the Star Ballroom Dance Club dance studio in Monterey Park, a city of 60,000 on the outskirts of Los Angeles with a substantial Asian population.
The motive was unclear, but there were unconfirmed reports that the shooting was the result of a domestic dispute between a man and his wife.
Police believe the suspect, described as an Asian man aged between 30 and 50, targeted a second event at a dance hall at Alhambra over two miles away.
The gunman fled after revellers wrestled the gun away from him. The weapon was recovered.
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department released a photograph of the suspect wearing a black leather jacket, glasses and a beanie.
“We need to get this person off the street as soon as possible,” said Sheriff Luna, who said multiple rounds had been fired at the dance hall.
Saturday night’s attack was the second mass shooting in California within days following the slaughter of six people, including a 16-year-old mother and her 10-month-old baby in Tulare County.
Thousands of people were due to attend the festivities at Monterey Park, one of the largest celebrations of the Lunar New Year in California.
Events were cancelled as police embarked on the manhunt.
‘Monterey Park should have been celebrating but experienced horrific, heartless gun violence’
The Monterey Park shooting – described as a “most heinous event” by Sheriff Luna – took place at 10.20pm on Saturday.
Seung Won Choi, who owns a local restaurant, told the LA Times that several people rushed in and told him to lock the door.
Wong Wei, another local resident, told the newspaper that a friend was in the dance hall when the shooter began firing indiscriminately.
She left the hall and saw the gunman and three bodies.
Tony Lai, 35, a local resident, thought the noises he heard on Saturday night were part of the festivities.
“I thought maybe it was fireworks. I thought maybe it had something to do with Lunar New Year,” he said. “And we don’t even get a lot of fireworks here. It’s weird to see this. It’s really safe here. We’re right in the middle of the city, but it’s really safe.”
Sheriff Luna voiced his horror at the slaughter. “Who walks into a dance hall and guns down 20 people?”
He added that Monterey Police were liaising with their counterparts in Alhambra over the two incidents.
“We believe there’s an incident that may be related. We’re not quite there yet,” he said.
“But it’s definitely on our radar screen where a male suspect walked into a dance hall, and he walked in there with a firearm. Some individuals wrestled the firearm from him and that individual took off.”
Chester Chong, the leader of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles, told ABC7 that he believed the shooting was sparked by a row between a man and his wife.
Judy Chu, a local member of Congress, described Monterey Park as a “beautiful community”.
“People are safe and there’s a high quality of life,” she told CNN. “That is why it is even more shattering to have this happen.”
Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, wrote on Twitter that the city of Monterey Park “should have had a night of joyful celebration” and instead experienced a “horrific and heartless act of gun violence”.
The latest shooting was the fifth mass killing since the beginning of the year, reigniting the debate on gun laws in the United States.