11th victim dies after Monterey Park shooting as police explore motive theories

MONTEREY PARK, Calif. — On Saturday night, thousands of people gathered in the nation’s first suburban Chinatown at a festival to welcome the Lunar New Year — the first such party in Monterey Park since the pandemic began three years ago. There was music and street food and carnival rides, and all along the avenue, people danced in the Year of the Rabbit.

An hour after the outdoor party wrapped up, the dancing continued for an older crowd inside Star Ballroom Dance Studio on West Garvey Avenue, which had served for more than three decades as the sweetest spot in town, where people in their 50s, 60s and well into their retirement years came together to show off their moves, learn the basics and be with each other. A family, many of them called their crowd.

Authorities said they still do not know how the shooter obtained the weapons he used in his attack, and they said they are still investigating whether he acquired them legally.

In all, officers recovered at least three firearms that they linked to Huu Can Tran: a rifle they found when they raided his home; a handgun recovered from Tran’s cargo van, where he was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound; and a modified semiautomatic weapon that was wrested from his possession after he entered a second dance studio in nearby Alhambra.

A 73-year-old woman who was injured during the shooting in Monterey Park was discharged from the hospital, according to the LAC+USC Medical Center.

A flurry of 911 calls about an active shooter began at 10:22 p.m. local time, lasting about 30 seconds, Monterey Park Police Chief Scott Wiese said at a Monday afternoon briefing. Officers responded about three minutes later, running into the dance studio as attendees were fleeing. “Imagine people going out and my officers swimming upstream to get inside to stop the problem,” he said. Wiese said he arrived at the scene within 20 minutes and soon called the Los Angeles County Sheriff. Outside of the dance studio, officers discovered one of the victims had been shot in their car, likely before the rampage began.

Sheriff Luna said the weapon wrestled away from Tran in Alhambra was a 9mm semiautomatic Mac 10 “assault weapon.”

Investigators also found a 7.26-by-.25-caliber Norinco brand handgun in Tran’s van. Tran was arrested in 1990 for unlawful possession of a firearm, Luna said.

Sheriff Luna said investigators found 42 shell casings at the site of the shooting. They also found a large-capacity magazine, he said.

Investigators seized a .308 caliber rifle, numerous electronic devices and a large amount of ammunition after serving a search warrant at the home of Huu Can Tran, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said at an afternoon briefing Monday. The findings led officials to believe Tran was “manufacturing homemade firearm suppressors.”

Twenty minutes after Huu Can Tran, 72, opened fire at a dance studio in Monterey Park, he entered another venue about three miles away, the Lai Lai Ballroom & Studio in Alhambra, Calif., with a gun.

Brandon Tsay, whose family owns the business, wrestled Tran’s gun away from him, and Tsay has since been declared a hero by public officials and on social media.

“This individual did what many would never be able to do or imagine, but he saved so many more lives,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda L. Solis said at a news conference Monday.

Tran’s double-wide mobile home in Hemet, Calif. — about 80 miles southeast of Monterey Park — had a deserted look Monday.

Police had been there the night before, pounding on locks to open Tran’s shed, according to a neighbor, Ronald Smith.

Tran’s front rooms had no furniture, but Smith said Tran had never had any furniture the whole time he’d lived there. Tran purchased the property in 2020.

Tran kept to himself and was pretty much a loner, although he wasn’t unfriendly, Smith said. He spent a lot of time tinkering with his white van, cleaning it or working underneath it. He even shaved outside using the driver’s side mirror, Smith said.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna will hold a conference with other officials about the shooting at 3 p.m. local time, the department announced.

As news spread of the mass killing at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park, a Los Angeles suburb, people in California and across the country wondered how to help the family members of the slain, the injured and the Asian American community in general.

Monterey Park and Alhambra have been home to Asian American Pacific Islanders and their cultures for generations.

The City of Monterey Park temporarily converted the Park Langley Center into a survivor resource center for those impacted by the mass killing. In a news release, the city said that a memorial honoring the victims and survivors has been established at the Monterey Park City Hall “for our community to mourn.”

One of the 10 people injured in Saturday’s shooting has died at a hospital, bringing the death toll to 11.

The Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center was treating four of the 10 people who had been injured at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio, spokesperson Connie Castro told The Washington Post.

“Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we are saddened to share that one of the victims has succumbed to their extensive injuries,” said a statement issued by the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services on behalf of the medical center.