By: Thomas I. Likness
Eagle News Service

(Eagle News) — The gunman in a California mass shooting that left 10 people dead in a dance club Saturday night has been identified as a 72-year-old Asian man.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna identified him as Huu Can Tran.

He was found dead in a cargo van that police had surrounded Sunday morning.

“Investigators conducted a search of the vehicle and determined the male inside the van was the mass shooting suspect,” Luna told a news conference Sunday. “During the search several pieces of evidence were found linking the suspect to both locations in Monterey Park and Alhambra.”

The tragedy began Saturday night when Tran entered a dance club in Monterey Park and opened fired.

As well as the 10 victims, another 10 people were injured.

Some 20 minutes later, Tran was spotted walking into a dance club with a gun in nearby Alhambra.

He was tackled and disarmed but managed to get away.

On Sunday morning, police officers in Torrance, south of Los Angeles, located a van matching the description of the one Tran was believed to be driving and followed it into a shopping center parking lot.

“When officers exited their patrol vehicle to contact the occupant, they heard one gunshot coming from within the van,” said Luna.

At that point they called for assistance and the vehicle was surrounded by several armored vehicles.

SWAT officers eventually approached the van and found a man inside, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The motive for the mass slaying remains unknown.

“We’re looking at every angle,” said Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna. “Whether it’s domestic violence, the question was asked earlier about a hate crime, you have to leave the door open for any possibility until we understand who this suspect is, what his motives are, where he came from, what his intention was.”
(Eagle News Service)