Ten injured people were taken to area hospitals following the shooting, and one person has died, according to LAC+USC Medical Center.
“Our heroic staff at LAC+USC Medical Center have worked tirelessly to care for the four victims entrusted to our care. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we are saddened to share that one of the victims has succumbed to their extensive injuries. We want to express our deepest sympathies to their families and loved ones,” said the hospital.
3:09 p.m. ET, January 23, 2023
Monterey Park will host a vigil to honor victims Tuesday
The city of Monterey Park will host a vigil Tuesday to honor those killed in a mass shooting at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio over the weekend.
"We believe that it is important for our community to come together to remember and heal," Monterey Park Mayor Henry Lo said in a statement on Twitter.
The vigil will start at 5:30 p.m. local time at Monterey Park City Hall, the statement said. That's the same place a memorial was already established, according to the city.
Mental health resources are also available. A Survivors Resource Center has been set up at Monterey Park's Langley Senior Center, the statement said, and are available from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. local time.
Read the tweet:
3:12 p.m. ET, January 23, 2023
Monterey Park suspect made a series of allegations to police in his city early in January
From CNN's Stella Chan
The man who officials say killed 10 people and wounded 10 others over the Lunar New Year weekend in Monterey Park went to a police station in Hemet, a city in Riverside County, with complaints earlier this month.
Hemet, where he lived, is about 86 miles from Monterey Park.
The Hemet Police Department said Huu Can Tran, the alleged shooter, came into the station twice in early January.
“Tran visited the Hemet Police Department lobby on January 7 and 9, 2023, alleging past fraud, theft, and poisoning allegations involving his family in the Los Angeles area 10 to 20 years ago. Tran stated he would return to the station with documentation regarding his allegations but never returned,” the police department said in a statement.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department executed a search warrant on Tran’s Hemet home in a local senior community, according to the police department.
The local police department said this is a “highly sensitive, ongoing investigation” and defers to the sheriff's department for further inquiries.
Some background: A longtime acquaintance of Tran remembered him as a regular patron of the Monterey Park dance studio where the shooting happened over the weekend. The friend, who also asked not to be named, was close to Tran in the late 2000s and early 2010s, when he said Tran would come to the dance studio “almost every night” from his then home in nearby San Gabriel.
At that time, Tran often complained that the instructors at the dance hall didn’t like him and said “evil things about him,” the friend recalled. He said Tran was “hostile to a lot of people there.”
More generally, Tran was easily irritated, complained a lot and didn’t seem to trust people, the friend said.
4:29 p.m. ET, January 23, 2023
Police are investigating possible motives behind the Monterey Park mass shooting. Here's what we know so far.
From CNN staff
The man found dead inside a white cargo van after a standoff with police in Torrance, California, was confirmed as the person suspected of carrying out a mass shooting in Monterey Park on Saturday night, according to police.
Huu Can Tran, 72, was pronounced dead at the scene following a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said during a news conference Sunday afternoon.
Tran is suspected of opening fire at a dance studio in Monterey Park, killing 10 people and injuring 10 more as the city’s large Asian American community was celebrating Lunar New Year weekend, Luna said.
Here's what we know about the investigation into the deadly mass shooting:
The victims: The Los Angeles County Coroner’s office has released the names of two of the 10 victims killed in the Monterey Park, California, shooting. The victims identified are My Nhan, a 65-year-old woman, and Lilan Li, a 63-year-old woman. Officials have not yet released the names of the other three women and five men killed in the attack, but they have provided general age ranges. Nine of the 10 victims were in their 60s and 70s and one was in her 50s, according to officials.
The suspect: At around 10:20 a.m. local time Sunday, police in the city of Torrance — about 30 miles southwest of Monterey Park — spotted a white cargo van matching the description of one seen leaving the scene of the Alhambra dance studio, Luna said. Officers followed the van into a shopping center parking lot and began getting out of their patrol car to approach the driver — later identified as Tran — but retreated when they heard a gunshot from inside the van, he said. Armored vehicles and SWAT teams arrived and eventually cleared the van, discovering Tran dead inside.
nvestigation: Inside the van, investigators found “several pieces of evidence” linking Tran to both the Monterey Park and Alhambra dance studios, the sheriff said, not providing further details. They also found a handgun, Luna said. Police previously said a gun was wrestled from the armed man at the Alhambra dance studio. Three people who knew Tran told CNN he had once been a regular patron of the Monterey Park dance hall, where he gave informal dance lessons and met his ex-wife.
The weapon: Luna described the firearm taken from the man in Alhambra as a “magazine-fed semi-automatic assault pistol” with an extended, large-capacity magazine. A law enforcement official told CNN it was a Cobray M11 9mm semi-automatic weapon.
Motive: Investigators have yet to determine a motive, Luna said, but will be considering any available criminal or mental health history and issue a search warrant to find more details. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has obtained a search warrant for Tran’s home in Hemet, California, about 80 miles east of Monterey Park, a Hemet Police spokesperson confirmed.
2 Monterey Park shooting victims have been identified
From CNN's Stella Chan
The Los Angeles County Coroner’s office has released the names of two of the 10 victims killed in the Monterey Park, California, shooting.
The victims identified are My Nhan, a 65-year-old woman, and Lilan Li, a 63-year-old woman.
Officials have not yet released the names of the other three women and five men killed in the attack, but they have provided general age ranges. Nine of the 10 victims were in their 60s and 70s and one was in her 50s, according to officials.
8:37 a.m. ET, January 23, 2023
"I really thought I would have to shoot him," says the man who stopped Monterey Park mass shooter
From CNN's Michelle Watson
Brandon Tsay speaks about stopping the Monterey Park mass shooter at the Lai Lai ballroom in Alhambra, California. (ABC)
Brandon Tsay is being hailed as a hero for stopping the Monterey Park mass shooter at the Lai Lai Ballroom in Alhambra, California. He told ABC that the incident has left him "shook."
"It was Chinese New Year's. We were hosting a social dance party. I was in the lobby. It was late into the evening, most of our customers already left. I wasn't paying attention to the front door — I was looking into the dance ballroom, the dance floor, and this is when I heard the sound of the front door quickly closing and instantly followed by the sound of metal object clinking together as if they were rubbing," Tsay said. "That's when I turned around and saw that there was an Asian man holding a gun."
"My first thoughts was – I was gonna die here. This was it," Tsay added.
The man was identified as 72-year-old Huu Can Tran, who later died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, CNN had previously reported. Tsay said he didn't recognize the shooter.
"He didn't seem like he was here for any money, he wasn't here to rob us," Tsay said. "When he was looking around the room it seemed like he was looking for targets – people to harm."
Tsay said he needed to disarm the shooter or else "everybody would have died."
"Something came over me – I realized, I needed to get the weapon away from him," he added.
"When I got the courage, I lunged at him with both my hands, grabbed the weapon and we had a struggle. We struggled into the lobby, trying to get this gun away from each other," Tsay said. "He was hitting me across the face. Bashing the back of my head. I was trying to use my elbows to separate the gun away from him, create some distance."
Once he was able to seize the gun from the shooter, he told the man to leave. "At this point I thought he would run away, but he was just standing there, contemplating whether to fight or to run away. I really thought I would have to shoot him."
But the shooter walked out the door and returned to his van, Tsay said, adding that he then called the police.
The incident left him with bruising on his body, across his nose and the back of his head, Tsay added. "After the incident, I was shook. I was shaken all night. I couldn't believe what happened."
"A lot of people have been telling me how much courage I had to confront the situation like this," Tsay said. "But, you know what courage is? Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the ability to have adversity of fear when fearful events happen such as this."
8:19 a.m. ET, January 23, 2023
Monterey Park shooting is "a tragedy of incomprehensible proportions," California representative says
From CNN's Andrew Millman
Rep. Mark Takano speaks at a conference in Washington, DC, in 2020. (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
Rep. Mark Takano says the shooting that took place in Monterey Park on Saturday is "a tragedy of incomprehensible proportions."
Takano — who represents Riverside County, which is near where the mass shooting took place — said the area has “vibrant communities, Asian American communities.”
The shooting took place as the community celebrated Lunar New Year, which Takano said is a very important time for Asian Americans.
It is “just a very joyous time of year for families to get together and to have a tragedy like this happen on the eve of the Lunar New Year is just incredibly sad and tragic,” said the representative, who is also the vice chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.
“I just want to emphasize to the community that thanks to the good work of L.A. County Sheriff [Robert] Luna and his deputes, the suspect was identified very quickly. We know the suspect took his own life, so the community can feel safe from that threat,” Takano noted.
9:02 a.m. ET, January 23, 2023
Coroner's office still working to identify victims of Monterey Park mass shooting
From CNN's Chris Boyette
The Star Dance Studio where 10 people were killed is seen in Monterey Park, California, on January 22. (Philip Cheung for The Washington Post/Getty Images)
Authorities are working to identify the victims of the shooting in Monterey Park, California, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna.
Officials have not yet named the 10 people that were killed. Luna said the victims are generally older than 50. Seven of the 10 injured victims were still hospitalized Sunday, he said.
"Please keep in mind that especially with the deceased victims, the coroner's office retrieved the remains not that long ago. So, they're still in the process of identifying,” Luna told reporters Sunday. “There's a lot of work that still needs to be done to answer a lot of questions that all of us have."
Luna said that because the victims haven’t all been identified, he couldn’t say their exact ages, but gave a range.
“I don't have the specific ages because they have not been identified. But they're not in their 20s or 30s. They seem to be probably, I would say, in their 50s, 60s, and maybe some even beyond that,” Luna said.
The mass shooting is one of the deadliest in California’s history and at least the 33rd in the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which like CNN, defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more people are shot, excluding the shooter.
The violence came as a shock to many who felt Monterey Park – where some 65% of residents are of Asian descent – was a safe enclave for the robust Asian community. Amid Saturday night’s carnage and fear, the city canceled the second day of its Lunar New Year festival, typically one of its most joyous holidays.
CNN's Elizabeth Wolfe contributed reporting to this post.
7:32 a.m. ET, January 23, 2023
New York Times: Man describes disarming suspected Monterey Park gunman at second dance hall location
From CNN's Kelly McCleary
Brandon Tsay speaks about his encounter with the suspect at the Alhambra dance hall. (ABC)
A man who encountered the suspect at the Alhambra dance hall just minutes from the scene of the massacre said he knew immediately the armed man was dangerous.
“He was looking at me and looking around, not hiding that he was trying to do harm. His eyes were menacing,” Brandon Tsay told the New York Times.
He was first alerted to the man’s presence when he heard the front doors at Lai Lai Ballroom & Studio close as he was working in the ticket office of the business his family has run for three generations, Tsay said.
The man pointed a semi-automatic weapon at Tsay, he told the Times, saying it was the first gun he’d seen in real life. “My heart sank, I knew I was going to die,” he said.
“From his body language, his facial expression, his eyes, he was looking for people,” Tsay said.
He struggled with the man for about a minute and a half and eventually wrestled the gun from him, Tsay told the Times. He was able to grab the weapon when the man took his hand off it, as if to manipulate it to begin shooting, Tsay said.
“That moment, it was primal instinct,” he said. “Something happened there. I don’t know what came over me.”
Once Tsay was in control of the gun, he pointed it back at the suspect and yelled for him to “get the hell out of here,” he said.
Tsay told the Times he’s still processing what happened but is heartbroken for the Monterey Park community. “We have such a tight-knit community of dancers,” he said. “It feels so terrible something like this happened, to have one of our individuals try to harm others,” he told the Times.
What authorities said about the second location: After releasing a barrage of gunfire on the people inside the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park, California, police said the gunman drove to the second dance hall in neighboring Alhambra where he entered with a firearm but fled after being disarmed.
The suspect was later found dead Sunday inside a white cargo van after a standoff with police in Torrance, California, according to police.
