A gunman opened fire at a dance hall in Monterey Park, near Los Angeles, as the local community celebrated Lunar New Year, and witnesses said he fired indiscriminately from a semi-automatic weapon.
According to early investigations, it may have been the result of a domestic dispute between a husband and wife.
Local resident and Los Angeles Chinese Chamber of Commerce leader Chester Chong told a local ABC7 outlet that he believes the massacre was not a hate crime, but rather a case of domestic disturbance taken to the extreme.
Ten people were killed and at least 10 others wounded in a shooting in a predominantly Asian town in Southern California, police said in a statement Sunday, and the suspected shooter is on the run.
Andrew Meyer of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office told reporters that police officers responded to emergency calls around 10:20 p.m. on Saturday (06:20 a.m. on Sunday) and when they arrived they found people leaving the nightclub.
Upon entering the venue, 10 people were pronounced dead and at least 10 additional victims had to be taken to various local hospitals, where they remain in stable to severe condition.
“The suspect fled the scene and his arrest is pending,” Meyer said.
Police did not give a description of the suspect and did not say what type of weapon he used.
mostly Asian area
Monterey Park, about eight miles east of downtown Los Angeles, is home to about 61,000 people, most of whom are Asian or Asian-American.
Meyer said detectives were also aware of another incident that occurred in the neighboring town of Alhambra.
“We have investigators on the scene trying to determine if there is a connection between these two incidents,” he said.
According to news reports, an attempted shooting at a ballroom in the Alhambra had been foiled, with the suspected gunman downed and unarmed, and no injuries reported.
President Joe Biden received information about the Monterey Park killings and ordered the FBI to provide “full support” to local authorities, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tweeted.
Wong Wei, who lives in the Monterey Park area, told the Los Angeles Times that a friend of hers had gone to the nightclub and was in the bathroom when the shots started.
When he came out, he saw a man carrying a long gun and shooting indiscriminately, as well as the bodies of three people, two of them women and the other someone he identified as the manager of the nightclub.
The newspaper reported that Seung Won Choi, the owner of a seafood restaurant near the scene of the killing, said three people ran into his restaurant and told him to lock the door.
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The three said that there was a man with a semi-automatic weapon that had several rounds of ammunition and would reload every time it ran outChoi told the newspaper.
Tens of thousands of people had gathered earlier that day for the two-day Chinese New Year festivities, which are among the largest in Southern California.
Meyer said detectives didn’t know if the suspect knew his victims or was targeting a particular group.
“We will look at all angles,” he said, adding that officers were reviewing surveillance camera footage.
extreme gun violence
Gun violence is a big problem in the United States, where according to the Gun Violence Archive website there were 647 mass shootings last year, defined as incidents involving four or more people shot or killed, not including the shooter.
More than 44,000 people died in the country from gunshot wounds in 2022, more than half of them by suicides.
America has more guns than people: one in three adults owns at least one gun, and nearly one in two adults lives in a home with a gun. (YO)
Source: Eluniverso
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