The mass shooting happened Saturday night local time at a dance club in Monterrey Park, a small town near Los Angeles. The attacker who killed 10 people and wounded 10 more was found dead in his van hours later. Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna announced that the killer has been identified as 72-year-old Huu Can Tran, but that his motive for the deadly attack is unknown.
“We want to know how something so terrible happened,” said Luna, adding that the killer took his own life in the city of Torrance, about 30 kilometers from the crime scene. After killing ten people in Monterrey Park, Tran stormed a Chinese New Year celebration in the Alhambra with a gun, but security guards managed to take his weapon away.
Monterey Park is a city about eleven kilometers from Los Angeles. About two-thirds of its residents are Asian, according to US Census data.
Ten people were wounded in the shooting and seven remain in the hospital, some in critical condition, the sheriff said at a news conference Sunday afternoon in Monterey Park. He added that the identification of the dead is still ongoing and that most of them are in their 50s and 60s, some are even older.
Deadly shooting
The mass shooting, one of the deadliest in California history, began around 10:22 p.m. local time Saturday at the popular Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park, about 7 miles east of Los Angeles. Police Chief Scott Wiese said they found carnage at the scene and that the first officers to arrive there were some of the youngest officers from his unit, who had just finished training a few months ago. “They encountered a scene that none of them had prepared for,” he said. “There were injured and dead people inside,” he added.
About 30 minutes later, the attacker arrived at another dance studio in the nearby town of Alhambra. He entered the studio, but two security guards managed to steal his weapon, so he ran away. The sheriff said he believes Tran intended to kill more people.
The man who killed 10 people at a dance studio in Southern California once frequented it, even meeting his ex-wife there, three people who knew him told CNN.
Confession of the ex-wife
His ex-wife told CNN that she met Tran about twenty years ago at a dance studio where he taught dance. Tran saw her at a dance, introduced himself and offered her free lessons, she said.
The two got married shortly after they met, according to the ex-wife. Although Tran was never violent towards her, she said he was quick to anger.
For example, she said, if she missed a dance, he would get upset because he thought it made her look bad. She said that after a few years together, she got the impression that he had lost interest in her. Her sister confirmed her statement.
He occasionally worked as a truck driver, his ex-wife said.
It was unclear how often Tran had visited the ballroom in recent years, if at all.
Tran filed for divorce in late 2005, and a judge granted the divorce the following year, Los Angeles court records show.
Frequent guest of the dance studio
Another longtime acquaintance of Tran’s also remembers that he was often present at the dance studio.
The friend, who asked not to be named, said Tran had about a five-minute drive from his home to the dance studio.
Tran often complained a decade ago that the instructors at the ballroom didn’t like him and said mean things about him, the friend recalled, adding that he was hostile to many there.
Tran was easily angered, complained a lot and didn’t seem to trust people, the friend said.
In 2013, Tran sold his San Gabriel home, which he had owned for more than two decades, and seven years later, records show, he bought a mobile home in a senior citizen community in Hemet, California, a remote suburb about 85 miles east of Los Angeles. .
A friend of Tran’s said he hadn’t seen him in several years and was completely shocked when he heard about the shooting.
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