A gunman killed 10 people and wounded 10 others at a Los Angeles-area ballroom dance club following a Lunar New Year celebration, setting off a manhunt for the suspect in the fifth mass killing in the U.S. this month.
Capt. Andrew Meyer of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department said people were "pouring out of the location screaming" when officers arrived at around 10:30 p.m. Saturday. He said officers then went into the ballroom and found victims as firefighters treated the wounded.
Monterey Park is a city of about 60,000 people that sits at the eastern edge of Los Angeles. The majority of its residents are Asian immigrants or their descendants, most of them Chinese. Meyer said it's too early in the investigation to know if the gunman knew anyone at the ballroom or if it was a hate crime or not.
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Seung Won Choi, who owns a restaurant across the street from where the shooting happened, told The Los Angeles Times that three people rushed into his business and told him to lock the door. The people said to Choi that there was a shooter with a gun who had multiple rounds of ammunition on him.
The celebration in Monterey Park is one of the largest Lunar New Year events in Southern California. Two days of festivities were planned but officials canceled Sunday's events following the shooting.
