California shooting: The suspect in a California dance club shooting that left 10 dead, shot himself in a van. According to Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna, the man killed himself as police officers surrounded the van he used to flee. Luna identified the suspect at 72-year-old Huu Can Tran. He ruled out possibility of other suspects and added that the motive for the attack was not yet known. “The investigation is still ongoing,” he said.
On Sunday 10 people were killed when the 72-year-old opened fire at a dance club celebrating Chinese Lunar New Year party at Monterey Park in Los Angeles. Police tracked him down to a van and surrounded it. As the officers approached the vehicle, they heard a gunshot. “The suspect sustained a self-inflicted gunshot wound and was pronounced dead at the scene,” Luna said.
Surveillance video being reviewed
Meanwhile, detectives were reviewing surveillance video and did not yet know whether the suspect was targeting a particular group.
“We don’t know if this is specifically a hate crime defined by law but who walks into a dance hall and guns down 20 people?”, sheriff Luna earlier said.
US President Joe Biden has ordered all US flags at public buildings to be flown at half-staff to honour the victims of the mass shooting, the White House said in a statement.
Two-day event cancelled
Tens of thousands of people had gathered for the two-day Lunar New Year festival, one of the largest in southern California. The second day of the festival was cancelled after the attack.
The shooting, the deadliest in the US since a shooter in Texas killed 22 people at an elementary school in May, has yet again brought under the spotlight rising gun violence in the country and easy access to firearms.
The year 2022 saw as many as 647 incidents of mass shooting, according to the Gun Violence Archive website. More than 44,000 people died from gunshot wounds in 2022 across the US, more than half of which were suicides.
