A gunman killed 10 individuals at a ballroom dance studio amid Lunar New Year celebrations after which most likely tried — however failed — to focus on a second dance corridor, authorities mentioned Sunday. An pressing search was underway throughout the Los Angeles space for the suspect.

LA County Sheriff Robert Luna mentioned the taking pictures on the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park left 5 girls and 5 males lifeless and wounded one other 10 individuals. Then 20 to half-hour later, a person with a gun entered the Lai Lai Ballroom in close by Alhambra.

Authorities consider the 2 occasions are related. They provided no particulars a few potential motive.

The suspect in each circumstances was described as an Asian male. He entered the Alhambra membership with a gun, and other people wrestled the weapon away from him earlier than he fled, Luna mentioned.

By noon, police in tactical autos and bomb-squad vans surrounded a white van in a parking zone. Hours earlier, Luna mentioned authorities have been on the lookout for a white van after witnesses reported seeing the suspect flee from Alhambra in such a car.

“We believe there is a person inside of that vehicle. We don’t know their condition, but we’re going to handle that in safest manner that we possibly can and try and identify that person. Could it be our suspect? Possibly,” Luna said.

In response to a question, Luna said it was possible that the person barricaded in van is dead.

Authorities said Sunday they know the suspect’s name but declined to release it because it could complicate their ability to apprehend him. But they did release a photo showing an Asian man wearing glasses and a winter hat. The image was taken from the attempted shooting in Alhambra.

The sheriff declined to say what type of gun was recovered in Alhambra. He said investigators believe the gun used in Monterey Park was not an assault rifle.

The shooting and manhunt sent a wave of fear through Asian American communities in the Los Angeles area and cast a shadow over Lunar New Year festivities around the country. Other cities sent extra officers to watch over the celebrations.

The massacre was the nation’s fifth mass killing this month. It was also the deadliest attack since May 24, when 21 people were killed in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

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!” The celebration in Monterey Park is one of California’s largest and had attracted tens of thousands throughout the day.

Two days of festivities, which have been attended by as many as 100,000 people in past years, were planned. But officials cancelled Sunday’s events following the shooting.

Tony Lai, 35, of Monterey Park was stunned when he came out for his early morning walk to learn that the noises he heard in the night were gunshots.

“I believed possibly it was fireworks. I believed possibly it had one thing to do with Lunar New Year,” he said. “And we do not even get plenty of fireworks right here. It’s bizarre to see this. It’s actually secure right here. We’re proper in the midst of the town, nevertheless it’s actually secure.” Wynn Liaw, 57, who lives about two blocks from the Monterey Park studio, said she was shocked that such a crime would happen, especially during New Year’s celebrations.

“Chinese individuals, they think about Chinese New Year very, very particular” — a time when ”you do not do something that can deliver unhealthy luck all the yr.” She took a picture of the activity outside the studio to send to relatives and friends in China ”to let them know how crazy the U.S. is becoming with all these mass shootings, even in the New Year.” An Associated Press/USA Today database on mass killings within the U.S. reveals that 2022 was one of many nation’s worst years by way of mass killings, with 42 such assaults — the second-highest quantity because the creation of the tracker in 2006. The database defines a mass killing as 4 individuals killed not together with the perpetrator.

The newest violence comes two months after 5 individuals have been killed at a Colorado Springs nightclub.

President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland have been briefed on the state of affairs, aides mentioned.

The taking pictures occurred at Star Ballroom Dance Studio, just a few blocks from metropolis corridor on Monterey Park’s important thoroughfare of Garvey Avenue, which is dotted with strip malls of small companies whose indicators are in each English and Chinese.

Cantonese and Mandarin are each extensively spoken, Chinese holidays are celebrated, and Chinese movies are screened recurrently within the metropolis.

The enterprise provided dance classes from tango to rumba to the fox trot, and rented its area for occasions.

On Saturday, its web site mentioned it was internet hosting an occasion referred to as “Star Night” from 8 p.m. to 11:30 p.m.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse employees and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)