Police said Sunday, killing 10 people and wounding at least 10 others in a shooting in a predominantly Asian-populated Southern California town, and the suspected shooter is on the run.
Source: AFP
the attacker opened fire in a ballroom in Monterey Park, near Los AngelesWhile the local community celebrated Lunar New Yearand witnesses said that fired indiscriminately with a semi-automatic weapon.
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 on Sunday) and when they arrived they found people leaving the disco.
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 conditions.
“The Suspect fled the scene and his arrest is still pendingMeyer said.
Police did not give a description of the suspect and did not say what type of weapon he used.
Monterey Park, about 13 kilometers east of downtown Los Angeles, it is home to about 61,000 people, most of whom are Asian or Asian-American.
Meyer said that the detectives were also aware of another episode occurred in the neighboring town of alhambra.
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We have investigators on the scene. trying to determine if there is a connection between these two incidents“, said.
According to press reports, an attempted shooting at a ballroom in the Alhambra had been thwartedwith the suspected gunman shot down and unarmedand no injuries were reported.
“FULL SUPPORT”
President Joe Biden received information about the murders in Monterey Park Y ordered the FBI to provide “full support” to local authoritiesWhite 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 that disco and was in the bathroom when the shots started.
when he came out, saw a man carrying a long gun and firing indiscriminately, as well as the bodies of three people, two of them women and the other from someone he identified as the boss of the disco
The newspaper reported that Seung Won Choi, who owns a seafood restaurant near the scene of the killing, said that three people ran into his restaurant and they told him to lock the door.
The three said that there was a man with a semi-automatic weapon that had several rounds of ammunition and that it recharged every time it ran out, Choi told the newspaper.
tens of thousands of people they had gathered earlier that day for the two-day Chinese New Year festivitieswhich are among the largest in Southern California.
Meyer said that detectives did not know if the suspect knew his victims or was it targeting a particular group.
“We will look at all angles”he noted, adding that officers were reviewing surveillance camera footage.
It’s too early in the investigation. to find out if this incident was a hate crime or not“, he declared.
In the United States there were more than 7,000 reported hate crimes in 2021which affected more than 9,000 people, according to data from the Department of Justice.
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Two-thirds of those crimes were related to race.
Gun violence is a big problem in America.where according to the Gun Violence Archive website last year there were 647 mass shootings, defined as incidents involving four or more people shot or killed, not including the attacker.
More than 44,000 people died in the country from gunshot wounds in 2022more than half of them due to 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.
