Huu Can Tran, 72, who was subsequently discovered dead in a white van, has been named by California authorities as the shooter who is suspected of killing 10 people in a ballroom dance studio close to Los Angeles.
According to LA County Sheriff Robert Luna, he suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound and was pronounced dead at the site.
In Monterey Park, which is well-known for having a sizable Asian community, Lunar New Year celebrations had already begun.
The motive is still unknown to the police.
At a press conference held on Sunday in Monterey Park, the sheriff announced that ten more individuals had been injured in the shooting and that seven of them were still hospitalised, several of them in critical condition.
The 10 fatalities, he continued, were still being identified, but they appeared to be in their 50s and 60s, with some of them perhaps being older.
Five ladies and five men had been killed, officials had earlier stated, and they were all “presumably” of Asian ethnicity.
One of the bloodiest mass shootings in California history started at the well-known Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park, about seven miles (11 km) east of downtown Los Angeles, at approximately 22:22 local time on Saturday (06:22 GMT on Sunday).
Police Chief Scott Wiese described what his officers discovered as a “scene of devastation,” and he noted that some of his squad’s newest members—who had just recently completed their training—were among the first to arrive at the site.
“They came across a scene none of them have prepared for,” he said. “There were injured people inside and dead people inside. My young officers did their job.”
The shooter showed up at a different dancing studio in the neighbouring town of Alhambra around 30 minutes later.
He entered the studio, but two individuals, according to the police, were able to take the firearm away from him before he could go.
The owner of the family-run dance club and a 26-year-old programmer, Brandon Tsay, told the New York Times that he was the only one to disarm the shooter. Tran, he claimed, was “looking at me and around, not hiding that he was attempting to do harm.”
Although he noted that he wanted to look into it further, Sheriff Luna stated that he thought the used weapon, a semi-automatic assault pistol with an extended magazine, was banned in California.
He commended the “two people in the community that I like. This could have been lot worse, but they saved lives, “In addition, the sheriff stated that he thought Tran wanted to kill more people.
Authorities searched the Los Angeles region for hours on Sunday in an effort to find the shooter.
A SWAT team surrounded a white van in a Torrance parking lot just before 13:00 local time (21:00 GMT), nearly 12 hours after the incident, and roughly 30 miles (48 kilometres) away from the Monterey Park shooting scene.
As they drew up, according to Sheriff Luna, they heard one gunshot coming from inside the van. They then discovered the suspect slouched over the wheel. A firearm was found among the evidence, and the shooter’s identity was confirmed.
There were no additional suspects, according to the sheriff, and it is thought that the shooter acted alone.
Police “assume,” according to him, that the van’s licence plates were stolen.
About 65% of people in Monterey Park are Asian Americans, making it the country’s first “Chinese suburb.” It became the first city on the US mainland where the majority of the populace was of Asian descent.
Locals knew the dance studio where the fatal shooting took place as a busy place, especially on Saturday nights.
The Washington Post quoted Alex Satrain, one of the instructors there, as saying that the studio’s regulars were “like a family.”
According to reports, some locals thought the gunshots were fireworks. In a statement to Reuters, Tiffany Chiu, whose parents reside close to the venue, said: “A lot of senior people live here, and it’s often very quiet.”
The Lunar New Year celebrations at Monterey Park were postponed while the neighbourhood was in sorrow. The celebratory banners and red lamps that had graced the streets have been removed by businesses.
The shooting was the bloodiest in the US since 21 people were shot dead at a school in Uvalde, Texas, in May of last year.
The term “mass shooting” is ambiguous. A mass shooting is defined as four injured or fatalities, according to the nonprofit US Gun Violence Archive.
That would make the shooting on Saturday the 33rd in just 23 days.
