The attack occurred at the end of the first day of a two-day street festival to celebrate Lunar New Year. The event, which began on the eve of Lunar New Year, is one of the largest free street fairs in Southern California, typically drawing crowds of over 100,000 visitors and over a hundred food vendors, performances and merchants.
No one has been arrested. A man was seen fleeing.
Good lord, I was born and raised about a half mile from there. The dance studio is right next door to the Bank of America where my family did (and still does) all its banking for decades. Criminy.
It appears the gunman is still at large.
Press briefing to take place shortly.
Press conference going on right now. L.A. County Sheriff has said the gunman is still at large. They have multiple descriptions but he did say it appears the gunman is an Asian male. He confirmed 10 dead and 10 more people transported to hospitals. Not much that could be considered new information so far.
Two more things. They’ve now posted a picture of the suspect. Also, there is a police standoff right now in Torrance that “a law enforcement source said was connected to the shooting” according to CNN, so it may be that they already have the suspect cornered.
So a late middle-aged ethnically (probably) Chinese man. Looking more like a personal grudge than a racist attack. I suppose better at least if turns out it’s not a random racist attack by some MAGA nutjob who might motivate copycats.
The sheriff said that there was another incident that happened twenty minutes later in nearby Alhambra that may be related. An Asian male with a gun entered a dancehall, where his gun was wrestled off him and he fled.
From CNN’s John Miller
The standoff in Torrance, California, began when police tried to stop a white cargo van that fit the description of a vehicle of interest from the Saturday night shooting in Monterey Park, law enforcement sources tell CNN, citing preliminary information.
As officers gave commands for the occupant to exit the van, they heard what they believe was the sound of the driver shooting himself, the sources said.
Officers have surrounded the van, and it appears they may be moving toward a tactical approach to ensure the driver is not still alive and armed inside.
Police are being cautious about reaching any premature conclusions since there is still a possibility that a dangerous suspect is on the loose, but the facts so far are consistent with the conjecture that the suspect, driving a white cargo van, shot himself when police tried to apprehend him.
The bizarre twist to all this is that, had he not been disarmed by a group of people at a second nearby dance studio, there would have been at least a second mass shooting shortly after the first.
I assume until they are completely sure they have to allow for the possibility that it might have been a different man at the dance studio, a coordinated attack by two people.
If indeed the same dude did the Monterey Park shooting, tried to do the Alhambra shooting, then shot himself in Torrance I have a couple comments / thoughts.
Doing two mass shootings in two venues is really leveling up in degree of difficulty for mass murder. That can’t be good news for the rest of us.
If he was angling for a suicide by cop, which it seems he sorta got, even if he pulled his own trigger, then I wonder what his plan was had he shot up the Alhambra nightclub and gotten away unscathed again as he did in MP? Was there a third place on his list? Where was it?
The dude apparently lost a gun at the Alhambra nightclub. But still had one in Torrance to finish himself with. He came well-prepared.
I grew up out there. Monterey Park & Alhambra are nearby each other, almost interchangeable sister cities. Torrance is a good ways away. In my era there was a lot of cultural difference between the two areas. Nothing’s impossible in LA, but of all the places to find a MP/Alhambra shooter fleeing to, Torrance and points beyond there would be one of my last guesses. I freely admit I’m way out of date on which ethnic communities have clustered where.
If the shooter was just going home when he was stopped in Torrance, that strongly suggests that his two targets were more or less selected at random. Or at least were not selected to target specific individuals known to him who’d be likely to be there then.
Nasty business all around.
Why do you say that?
Well, that white van sure isn’t going anywhere now …
Simply that they’re far from home. I now live in a major metro area too. I don’t know if you do. But it’s real unlikely I have friends or much knowledge of local hangouts 40-60 minutes’ drive away from home.
The lunar festival itself was a well-publicized mass crowd event. So an attractive target for a nut, almost no matter where he lives in greater LA. The other place, not so much.
Now if the bad guy lives near his targets and instead was just driving more or less randomly around the city after the two attacks, then that’s a whole different story. Which is why I put the conditional on my comment.
In that case the attacks could be on very deliberately picked targets (as to people, place, or both) while the random part is where he happened to be when whichever cop noticed his vehicle and began the stop.
The Los Angeles Times is reporting that the driver of the white van believed to be tied to Monterey Park ballroom shooting is dead.
Multiple law enforcement sources told The Times that the driver died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound and at least two bullet holes had been visible in the driver’s-side window in the moments prior to their approaching the vehicle.
Disappointing in some weird way. If he is responsible for shooting all those people, and trying to shoot a bunch more, he got away without suffering much for it.
And we may never find out the motive (unless he left a manifesto or something). Not that the motive changes anything, but I think it helps with such closure as is possible for those whose lives were affected.
Every so often, someone “breaks”, and attacks random people and themselves. I think this is part of the human condition, and when Jesus cast demons out of people, it was people like this. In this great armed nation, those people can take a lot of innocents with them, but that’s the only thing unusual about it.
If he killed himself, that’s kind of tidy. Hopefully his death gives some closure to the survivors of his victims.
There have been a lot of opinions on motives for suicide, and I don’t care much for other’s opinions on the matter, tidy or not. I feel that the decision to end one’s own life has to be the toughest decision one ever makes.
If this is really the man who killed 10 and wounded several others, I hope he thought as much about ending their lives as about ending his.
The 710 is nearly a direct link between Alhambra and Torrance. I’ve done that stretch in less than 15 minutes during non-rush hour traffic. If you are looking to get as far away as fast as possible from a crime scene in Alhambra, the 710 is a good way to do it.