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Monterey mass shooter may have gone to the hospital after fatally shooting 10 people during Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations.
Local hospital staff reported a man fitting Huu Can Tran’s description inside the emergency room for injuries potentially received from a fight, law enforcement sources told CNN.
Tran, 72, was identified as the gunman who shot several people in a ballroom dance studio late Saturday amid celebrations in the predominantly Asian American community.
Hospital workers said the man sat in the waiting room before leaving without treatment. He was identified by staff through wanted photos posted sheriff’s department’s Twitter account.
The shooting that occurred at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park late Saturday night left five women and five men dead and wounded another 10 people.
Then 20 to 30 minutes later, the gunman entered the Lai Lai Ballroom in nearby Alhambra where brave patrons fought him off and took the gun.
Tran fled the scene and was at large until Sunday when police found him in the van he used to flee the massacre.
Huu Can Tran, 72, may have went to the hospital Sunday after killing 10 people. Hospital workers said he appeared to have wounds from a fight. This photo was released earlier
Shortly after he was spotted at the hospital for treatment, Tran was pulled over by police. A SWAT team swarmed the van after a three-hour long standoff
After an hours-long standoff, Tran died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the van he used to flee after his attempt at a second shooting that was thwarted by ‘hero’ patrons on Saturday
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna identified Tran as the suspect on Sunday and confirmed that his motive is unknown.
‘He intended to kill more people,’ Luna said in a news conference on Sunday night. ‘They saved lives,’ he said of the patrons. ‘This could’ve been much worse.’
He continued: ‘The weapon that we recovered at that second scene I am describing as a magazine-fed semiautomatic assault pistol. Not an assault rifle, but an assault pistol that had an extended large capacity magazine attached to it.’
Another gun, a handgun, was later found in the van where Tran was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Luna said that the van had different plates.
Authorities had been on the lookout for the white cargo van after witnesses reported seeing the suspect fleeing Alhambra. No one was killed at that scene.
A short time after Tran was spotted at the hospital, police pulled over the van which led to the three-hour standoff.
By midday, police in tactical vehicles and bomb-squad trucks surrounded a white van in a parking lot 22 miles from Alhambra in Torrance, another majority Asian community.
It ended as police approached the vehicle and heard a gunshot. Tran was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
A law enforcement official walks past Tran who is slumped over in the driver’s seat of the van
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Investigators search a van that was linked to the mass shooting in Monterey Park
Tran was carrying what was described as a semi-automatic pistol with an extended magazine, and a second handgun was discovered in the van where he was found dead, officials said
Aerial footage shows officials pulling unknown items from the white van after the standoff
Horrifying pictures showed victims being stretched from the scene before being rushed to hospital as cops and ambulances swarmed the area.
Cops said throngs of terrified festival goers streamed out of the area ‘screaming’ as bullets continued to fly.
Tran was carrying what was described as a semi-automatic pistol with an extended magazine, and a second handgun was discovered in the van where he was found dead, Luna added.
The pistol is designed to take 30-round magazines which allows for rapid fire without having to frequently change magazines.
When asked if the gun was legal, Luna said: ‘I believe the weapon … is not legal to have here in the state of California.’
Luna said that he needed to consult the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for further details on the weapon’s legality.
The shooting and manhunt sent a wave of fear through Asian American communities in the Los Angeles area and cast a shadow over Lunar New Year festivities around the country. Other cities sent extra officers to watch over the celebrations.
A number of incidents took place over a wide portion of the Los Angeles area on Sunday all believed to have been perpetrated by the same suspect
Multiple casualties were reported after the shooting in California during New Year celebrations
Police release photo of the suspect in the Monterey Park Chinese Lunar New Year massacre
The first shooting happened on the 100 block of West Garvey Avenue, which is where the Star ballroom dance studio is based (pictured)
A second shooting, which cops were probing if it was related, happened at nearby Lai Lai Ballroom in Alhambra (pictured)
Monterey Park is a city of about 60,000 people on the eastern edge of Los Angeles and is composed mostly of Asian immigrants from China or first-generation Asian Americans.
The shooting happened in the heart of its downtown where red lanterns decorated the streets for the Lunar New Year festivities. A police car was parked near a large banner that proclaimed ‘Happy Year of the Rabbit!’
The celebration in Monterey Park is one of California’s largest. Two days of festivities, which have been attended by as many as 100,000 people in past years, were planned. But officials canceled Sunday’s events following the shooting.
