LOS ANGELES — The suspect in Saturday night's Lunar New Year mass shooting in Southern California was identified Sunday after he appeared to have died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said.
"The suspect in that tragedy is no longer with us," Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said. "He is no longer a threat."
Luna named the man as Huu Can Tran, 72. The question why, however, in the attack that killed 10 people and injured 10 others at a Monterey Park dance hall, remained.
"We still are not clear on a motive," Luna said at an early evening news conEarlier, sources familiar with the investigation said the person in a white van subjected to a traffic stop in the coastal city of Torrance, about 30 miles from the violence, fit the description of a person seen at crime scenes in Monterey Park and adjacent Alhambra. ference Sunday. "We want to know."
Luna said authorities believe the deceased person is indeed the suspect seen at both locations.
Authorities, including SWAT officers, surrounded and then breached the van, where the person was found dead in the early afternoon, Luna said. The vehicle had plates "that didn't belong on the vehicle," he said.
A search of the van turned up "several pieces of evidence" that linked the suspect to the crime scenes in neighboring San Gabriel Valley cities, Luna said. A handgun was also found in the van, he said.
Monterey Park police officers first responded to a dance hall, identified in government records as Star Ballroom Dance, after reports of a shooting came in at 10:22 p.m. Saturday, Luna said. People were rushing out of the hall as officers went into the business.
Ten people were killed at the venue, and 10 others were taken to hospitals in conditions from stable to critical, Luna said. Four were being treated at LAC + USC Medical Center, the hospital confirmed.
Authorities were still working to identify the victims. Luna reported that five were women and five were men. He later said many were in their 50s, 60s and "beyond."
Asked whether the case was being investigated as a hate crime, Luna said, "Everything is on the table."
He described the suspected mass shooting weapon, recovered at the second crime scene, as a "magazine-fed semi-automatic pistol." He said he doesn't believe it is legal to possess in California.
The possibility of a hate crime was part of the investigation, but authorities were also trying to determine whether the suspect knew any of the victims, Luna said. That aspect of the investigation will take time, he said, as the county coroner was still working on identifying victims.
"We don't know if this is specifically a hate crime defined by law, but who walks into a dance hall and guns down 20 people?" Luna said earlier in the day. "The description we have now is of a male Asian. Does that matter? I don't know. I can tell you that everything's on the table."