The hunt for a gunman who killed 10 people at a ballroom dance club during Lunar New Year celebrations ended Sunday when authorities found him dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside the van in which he fled after a second shooting was thwarted.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna identified the man as 72-year-old Huu Can Tran and said no other suspects were at large. Speaking at an evening news conference, Luna said the motive for the attack remained unclear. Ten people were also wounded, seven of whom were still in the hospital. Luna did not have the exact ages of the victims but said they all appeared to be over 50.

The sheriff added that the suspect was carrying what he described as a semi-automatic pistol with an extended magazine, and a second handgun was discovered in the van where Tran was found dead.

The shooting late Saturday in the predominantly Asian American community of Monterey Park sent a wave of fear through Asian American communities in the Los Angeles area. The city planned two days of festivities, which have been attended by as many as 100,000 people in past years, but officials canceled Sunday’s events following the shooting. Other cities sent extra officers to watch over the celebrations.

Earlier Sunday, law enforcement officials surrounded the van for hours before swarming and entering the vehicle. A person’s body appeared to be slumped over the wheel and was later removed from the vehicle.

Luna said the shooting was at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park.

Monterey Park Police Chief Scott Wiese said Sunday evening that officers arrived within three minutes of receiving the call. They found carnage inside the club and people trying to flee through all the doors.

“When they came into the parking lot, it was chaos,” Wiese said.

About 20 to 30 minutes after the first attack, the gunman entered the Lai Lai Ballroom in nearby Alhambra. But people there wrested the weapon away from him and he fled, according to Luna.

He said authorities began looking for a white van after witnesses reported seeing the suspect flee from Alhambra in such a vehicle.

During the search, Luna released images from the second location of an Asian man who was believed to be the suspect, apparently from a surveillance camera.

The van was found in Torrance, another community that is home to many Asian Americans, about 22 miles (34.5 kilometers) from the site of the attempted second shooting. Monterey Park is a city of about 60,000 people on the eastern edge of Los Angeles and is composed mostly of Asian immigrants from China or first-generation Asian Americans. The shooting happened in the heart of its downtown, where red lanterns decorated the streets for the Lunar New Year festivities. A police car was parked near a large banner that proclaimed “Happy Year of the Rabbit!”

Subscribe to WRAL:
https://youtube.com/c/wral5

Follow WRAL:
Facebook: https://facebook.com/WRALTV
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WRAL
IG: https://instagram.com/wral

About WRAL-TV:

WRAL is your Raleigh, North Carolina news source. Check out our videos for the latest news in Raleigh, local sports, Raleigh weather, and more at https://WRAL.com
#nationalnews #california #shooting