Investigators continued Monday to search for a motive behind a shooting at a Southern California dance studio that left a community in mourning.
The shooting happened following a night of Lunar New Year celebrations in the San Gabriel Valley community of Monterey Park. About 20 minutes after the gunfire at Star Ballroom Dance Studio, the gunman targeted a second dance hall in the nearby community of Alhambra, where he was disarmed, authorities said.
In a statement released Monday morning, the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services said a victim hospitalized at LA County USC Medical Center has died, bringing the death toll to 11 people.
The man identified by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department as the shooter, 72-year-old Huu Can Tran, was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound Sunday in a van in a Torrance strip mall parking lot, the sheriff’s department said.
A motive in the shooting remains unclear, Sheriff Robert Luna said Sunday.
“That is something that investigators, we’re trying to learn,” Luna said. “We want to know what the heck happened here.”
A search warrant was served Sunday at a Hemet senior center where neighbors said the shooter lived. Details about the search involving several agencies in the Riverside County community were not immediately available.
Speaking with NBC News, Monterey Park Mayor Henry Lo said the motive might have involved a personal relationship somehow connected to the dance hall. Lo said there appeared to be a “history of domestic violence,” but did not provide more details.
“We do understand that he may have had a history of visiting this dance hall and perhaps the motivation has to do with some personal relationships, but that’s something that I think investigators are still uncovering and investigating and we’ll probably find out more in the hours ahead or even days ahead,” Lo said.
The victims, five men and five women, were in their 50s, 60s and 70s. Two of the deceased victims were identified Monday morning by the Los Angeles County Coroner’ Office.
Monterey Park is a city of about 60,000 people on the eastern edge of Los Angeles. The shooting happened in the downtown area where tents and red lanterns decorated the streets for the Lunar New Year festivities. A large banner proclaimed “Happy Year of the Rabbit!”
The Star Ballroom Dance Studio’s website said it was hosting an event Saturday night called “Star Night” from 8 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. It was not immediately clear whether the shooter knew anyone at the dance hall event.
Congresswoman Judy Chu said she still has questions about the attack, but hopes residents now feel safe.
“The community was in fear thinking that they should not go to any events because there was an active shooter,” Chu said, speaking at Sunday’s news conference. “What was the motive for this shooter? Did he have a mental illness? Was he a domestic violence abuser? How did he get these guns and was it through legal means or not?”
The shooter was carrying what Luna described as a semi-automatic pistol with an extended magazine. A second handgun was discovered in the van where Tran died, authorities said.
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