Montery Park Shooting

Montery Park Shooting

Brooklynn Barbee, Journalist

Eleven people were killed and nine others were injured in a shooting at a crowded dance studio in Monterey Park, California, this past Saturday night. Detectives believe that 72-year-old Huu Can Tran frequented the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park as well as the Lai Lai Ballroom and Studio in Alhambra. Detectives are also saying the investigations are in a very early stage but they are working hard to bring it to a complete close with closure for the victims families.

After going into the Star Ballroom Dance Studio and shooting at dancers and dance instructors there, Huu Can fled the scene and traveled to nearby Alhambra, where he entered a second dance hall, Lai Lai Ballroom. There is new surveillance footage of the Monterey Park shooting suspect walking into a small room of the Lai Lai Ballroom & Studio in Alhambra before he is confronted and disarmed. Police say the weapon he used was very uncommon, a high-power assualt weapon. Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said it is illegal to buy or sell the weapon he is seen in footage using in the state of California.

Police are saying jealousy over a relationship could have been a motive and that the shooting may have been sparked by a personal dispute. Law enforcement sources also believe Tran was having mental health/emotional problems that had been getting worse in the weeks before the shooting. Inside Tran’s home in Hemet, investigators found a .308-caliber rifle, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, electronic devices, including cell phones and computers, and items that led officials to suspect he was manufacturing firearm suppressors. Tran was found dead on Sunday from a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside a van in Torrance, about 30 miles southwest of Monterey Park