The Monterey Park attacker, near Los Angeles, is still at large: the police are looking for a man of Asian origin

Members of the police gather outside the scene of a shooting that took place during a Chinese Lunar New Year celebration, in Monterey Park, California, U.S., January 22, 2023 (REUTERS/Mike Blake)

The US police are looking for an Asian man as the alleged perpetrator of the mass shooting this Saturday in Monterey Park, near Los Angeles, in which ten people died and ten others were injured.

Sheriff Robert Luna, of Los Angeles, pointed out that the description they have received of the suspect corresponds to that of an Asian man, who fled.

Later, the US Police had located a car that could be the suspect in the mass shooting.

The agents found and cornered in Torrance, also in Los Angeles County, a white van that matched the suspicious vehicle cited by some witnesses and, according to Commissioner Robert Luna, that there is a person inside.

The US Police indicated this Sunday that it has located a possible suspect in the mass shooting the day before in the town of Monterey Park, near Los Angeles, where ten people died and another ten were injured.

“We don’t know his status, but we’re going to handle this in the safest way possible to try to identify that person. Could you be our suspect? Possibly, but at this point, if we do our job correctly, we don’t just look at that situation or scenario, but we make sure that we look at each and every possibility,” Luna said.

After the authorities’ operation, it was learned that the person inside the vehicle was dead. So far the authorities have not confirmed her identity and have not provided information on whether she is the suspect in the shooting.

The shooting occurred around 10:22 p.m. local time on Saturday (06:22 GMT today, Sunday) in a dance hall in Monterey Park, about 13 kilometers east of Los Angeles.

Luna indicated in a press conference that when the agents arrived at the scene they declared ten people dead. Another ten people were transferred injured to different hospitals in the area, some of them in critical condition.

The US Police indicated this Sunday that it has located a possible suspect in the mass shooting the day before in the town of Monterey Park, near Los Angeles, where ten people died and another ten were injured.

Five of the fatalities were men and the other ten women.

It is still being investigated whether this shooting is related to an incident that occurred some 20 minutes later in the neighboring suburb of Alhambra, north of Monterey Park, also in a dance hall and in which those present managed to disarm the assailant, who fled without firing a shot. .

“Our priority is to arrest whoever did it, charge him and prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law, whatever his motive,” added the sheriff in his appearance before the press.

Three still images from surveillance video of a suspicious Asian man appear in a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department bulletin, following the mass shooting during a Lunar New Year celebration in Monterey Park, California, USA, 22 February. January 2023. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department/Handout via REUTERS

The authorities still cannot determine that it was a “hate crime”: “Everything is on the table. We don’t know if this is specifically a hate crime defined by law, but who walks into a dance hall and shoots 20 people?

In Monterey Park, where according to official data 65.5% of the residents are of Asian origin, thousands of people had gathered hours before to celebrate the Chinese New Year. The festival was scheduled to continue today, but has been cancelled.

“Let everyone be clear that our Police Department will continue to protect the safety of those who live in Monterey Park every day,” added the mayor, Henry Lo, in that joint intervention before the media.

It is the fifth mass shooting in the United States this month and the deadliest since 21 people died at a Uvalde, Texas, school, according to The Associated Press/USA Today database on mass murders in the United States. The latest violence comes two months after five people were killed at a Colorado Springs nightclub.

Gun violence is a huge problem in the United States, which last year recorded 647 mass shootings, according to the Gun Violence Archive website, defined as an incident in which four or more people were shot or killed, not including the shooter.

More than 44,000 people died from gunshot wounds in 2022, of which more than half were suicides.

The country has more guns than people: one in three adults owns at least one gun, and nearly one in two adults lives in a home where there is a gun.

With EFE information

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