A person fatally shot 10 individuals at a ballroom dance venue in Monterey Park, California, late on Saturday through the metropolis’s Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations, and was nonetheless at massive after fleeing the scene, police mentioned.
Another 10 individuals had been taken to native hospitals to be handled for accidents, and not less than one was in important situation, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department mentioned early on Sunday morning, about 5 hours after the assault.
There was no data but a couple of motive for the capturing nor an outline of the suspect, division captain Andrew Meyer informed reporters in a news briefing on the scene.
The capturing passed off after 10 p.m. (6 a.m. GMT on Sunday) across the location of a Chinese Lunar New Year celebration the place many downtown streets are closed for festivities that draw hundreds of individuals from throughout Southern California.
Monterey Park is a metropolis round 7 miles (11 km) from downtown Los Angeles. About two-thirds of its residents are Asian, in response to U.S. Census knowledge. The sheriff’s division mentioned it didn’t know whether or not the assault was racially motivated.
Footage posted on social media confirmed injured individuals on stretchers being taken to ambulances by emergency employees. Around the scene of the capturing police guarded cordoned-off streets, the video confirmed.
“Our hearts go out to those who lost loved ones tonight in our neighboring city, Monterey Park, where a mass shooting just occurred,” Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia wrote on Twitter.
Mass shootings are recurrent within the United States, the nation with the very best charge of personal gun possession on the earth. The deadliest capturing in California historical past was in 1984 when a gunman killed 21 individuals at a McDonald’s restaurant in San Ysidro, close to San Diego.
