At least nine people were killed last night in a mass shooting at a nightclub in the US town of Monterey Park, California, near Los Angeles. The incident was recorded within the framework of the Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations that brought together thousands of people and is being investigated by the authorities.
In dialogue with the local media, Sergeant Bob Boese of the Los Angeles County Police, who works on the scene, located the shooting in an establishment on Garvey Avenue. He also pointed out that several witnesses blamed the attack on a shooter with a machine gun, who had fled.
Shooting near Los Angeles – preliminary, ten people were killed, another 16 were injured.
The man opened fire in Monterey Park at the moment when they celebrated the Chinese New Year. At first, the locals mistook the shots for fireworks. pic.twitter.com/gLa6ZgspKT
— Avia.Pro – 🛡️Foreign Affairs – 📡Geopolitics (@avia_pro) January 22, 2023
The Police provided the first information about what happened after maintaining silence for several hours after the incident in the town of Monterey Park, which is located about 16 km from downtown Los Angeles and has about 60,000 inhabitants, mostly of native origin. Asian.
For its part, the Associated Press news agency reported that Seung Won Choi, the owner of the Clam House seafood barbecue restaurant that works across the street from where the shooting took place, said that three people ran to his business during the attack and asked him to block the door.
According to the merchant, the witnesses stated that there was a shooter with a machine gun who was carrying several rounds of ammunition to be able to reload and that the shooting had taken place in a nightclub, information that according to AFP was later replicated in different press reports.
The local site Los Angeles Times detailed that the swing was recorded after 10:00 p.m. (local time) on Saturday, at the beginning of a two-day festival for the Chinese Lunar New Year in southern California.
Official information
Just at 4 (local time and 9 in Argentina), the Los Angeles County Police reported on its Twitter account about the participation of homicide detectives in the investigation into what happened in Monterey Park. The publication included a brief part with the official data obtained so far regarding the event.
The report locates the shooting at 10:22 p.m. and it is argued that the suspect is a man.
“Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Homicide Detectives are responding to assist the Monterey Park Police Department with a shooting death investigation. There are nine deaths. There is no additional information available at this time”, they limited themselves to communicating and asking for the collaboration of witnesses to find the suspect.
On the other hand, the politician and official of the Government of the city of Los Angeles, Kenneth Mejía, wrote on Twitter: “Our hearts go out to those who lost their loved ones tonight in our neighboring city, Monterey Park, where it just happened a mass shooting.”