US police are looking for an Asian man as the suspect in the mass shooting this Saturday in Monterey Parknear Los Angeles, in which ten people died and another ten 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.
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.
Five of the fatalities were men and the other ten women.
It is still being investigated whether that shooting is related to an incident that occurred about 20 minutes later in the neighboring suburb of alhambranorth 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.
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 in a Uvalde school (Texas), according to the database of Associated Press/usa today on mass murder 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 America.which last year recorded 647 mass shootings, according to the Gun Violence Archive website, defined as an incident with four or more people 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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Source-www.infobae.com