LA mass shooting kills ten with gunman still on loose

Ten people were killed in a mass shooting in Los Angeles on Saturday, when a gunman opened fire on a ballroom dance studio. At least 10 more are injured, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said.

The shooting occurred in Monterey Park, a predominantly Asian-American neighbourhood of the city.

Though the attack took place around 10:20pm the same day as the lunar new year celebrations in the area that draw thousands from across southern California, the sheriff’s department said it was too soon to tell if the attack was racially motivated.

“We will look at every angle as far as whether it was a hate crime or not,” said Captain Andrew Meyer of the sheriff’s department in a statement to reporters.

The gunman remains at large. Meyer also said the department was aware of another incident in a nearby suburb, Alhambra, and was looking into a possible connection. “We have investigators on scene trying to determine if there’s a connection between these two incidents,” he said.

Seung Won Choi, told the Los Angeles Times that three people ran into his nearby seafood restaurant and told him to lock the door. They said “the shooter . . . had multiple rounds of ammunition, so that once his ammunition ran out he reloaded,” the LA Times reported.

It is possible the death toll from the shooting could rise, Meyer said, as some of the injured remained in critical condition. The second day of lunar new year celebrations in Monterey Park have been cancelled.

This is the deadliest of the 33 mass shootings in the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. It is the deadliest shooting since 21 people were killed in a school in Uvalde, Texas, in May 2022.