A new massacre shocks California: 10 people were killed and at least 10 others injured Saturday night when a gunman opened fire at a ballroom dance studio in Monterey Park, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said. .
The tragedy occurs just five days after, in Goshen, a small town in the state, six members of a family were murdered, including a 10-month-old baby and a 72-year-old grandmother. Authorities called this massacre “a targeted attack.” The massacre has been described as particularly brutal for the execution-style murders of the baby, his teenage mother and her grandmother.
last night the mass shooting, one of the worst in California in recent memory, occurred around 10:22 p.m., police told reporters. The shooting took place on Lunar New Year’s Eve, about seven miles east of downtown Los Angeles.
There was little information about the gunman, male and still on the run. There is no known motive, nor a description of the shooter. A police source briefed on the matter said the gunman used a high-powered assault rifle at point blank range, according to a report from Los Angeles Times.
“When officers arrived on scene, they observed numerous people, customers…leaving the premises, yelling. Officers entered the scene and located additional victims,” said Officer Andrew Meyer, who said it was too early to tell if the shooting was a hate crime.
The fire occurred near the site where tens of thousands had gathered Saturday for the start of a Lunar New Year festival, one of the region’s largest festive events, which was due to begin at 10 a.m. and end at nine at night. Events this Sunday were cancelled.
“Our hearts go out to those who lost loved ones tonight in our neighboring city of Monterey Park where a mass shooting just occurred,” Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia, the first American to serve, said on Twitter. Asian origin to hold a citywide office in Los Angeles.
Monterey Park, a city of 61,000 in the San Gabriel Valley east of Los Angeles, is 65% Asian-American, 27% Latino and 6% white, according to census data. Monterey Park is a hub for Asian American supermarkets and restaurants.
The mass shooting in Monterey Park was one of the worst in modern Los Angeles County history. One of the last mass shootings of this magnitude occurred on Christmas Eve 2008, when a man dressed as Santa Claus entered a Covina home, armed with five handguns. Nine people were killed in that shootout, including the ex-wife of the shooter and her parents. The gunman took his own life hours after the shooting, recalled the Los Angeles publication.
Other California mass shootings in recent memory include the 1984 San Ysidro McDonald’s massacre, where a gunman killed 21; and the terrorist attack that left 14 dead in San Bernardino in 2015. All this added to the recent massacre in the Goshen farming community.
