The gunman who slaughtered 10 people during Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations in Monterey, California was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the van he used to flee after his attempt at a second shooting that was thwarted by ‘hero’ patrons.
‘He intended to kill more people,’ Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said in a news conference. Sunday night.
Luna identified the man as 72-year-old Huu Can Tran and said no other suspects were at large. He added that the motive remained unclear for the attack, which wounded 10 others. Seven people remain hospitalized.
The weapon suspected to have been used in the mass shooting was a magazine-fed semi-automatic assault pistol, which was also found in the van, Luna said.
Earlier Sunday, law enforcement officials swarmed and entered the van after surrounding it for for hours before hearing a gunshot. They found Tran’s body in the driver’s seat slumped over the steering wheel.
The standoff came after 10 people were shot and killed at a ballroom dance studio late Saturday amid Lunar New Years celebrations in the predominantly Asian American community of Monterey Park.
Luna said the shooting at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park left five women and five men dead and wounded another 10 people. Then 20 to 30 minutes later, the gunman entered the Lai Lai Ballroom in nearby Alhambra.
The suspect entered the Alhambra club with a gun, but people wrestled the weapon away from him before he fled, Luna said.
‘Remember, the suspect went to the Alhambra location after he conducted the shooting and he was disarmed by two community members who I consider to be heroes,’ Luna said on Sunday.
He added: ‘They saved lives. This could’ve been much worse. The weapon that we recovered at that second scene I am describing as a magazine-fed semiautomatic assault pistol. Not an assault rifle, but an assault pistol that had an extended large capacity magazine attached to it.’
Hours earlier, Luna said authorities were looking for a white van after witnesses reported seeing the suspect flee from Alhambra in such a vehicle.
Shortly after 10 p.m. Saturday, officers arrived on the scene of the shooting in response to a call of shots fired and found 10 people wounded outside the dance studio. The 10 wounded individuals were transported to local hospitals where they are in stable to critical condition, according to Luna.
The three-hour standoff ended when police broke into the vehicle and pulled out a mound of bloody sheets on Sunday afternoon.
By midday, police in tactical vehicles and bomb-squad trucks surrounded a white van in a parking lot 22 miles from Alhambra in Torrance, another majority Asian community.
‘We believe there is a person inside of that vehicle. We don’t know their condition, but we’re going to handle that in safest manner that we possibly can and try and identify that person. Could it be our suspect? Possibly,’ Luna said.
As officers during the standoff commanded the van’s occupant to exit the van, they reportedly heard the driver shoot himself.
For many tense moments following, the operation for the SWAT team became getting inside the van.
Eventually, officers smashed their way into the vehicle before before moving on to a second, similar-looking van nearby where they cracked the lock and forced their way in through the back.
The sheriff’s office moments earlier said the man in the first vehicle matched the description of their suspect, of whom they had released a photograph.
