10 dead in shooting after Chinese New Year celebrations in East Los Angeles

At least ten people have died and ten more have been injured in a shooting that occurred at the end of the Chinese New Year celebrations in a dance hall in the city of Monterey Park, east of Los Angeles, as confirmed by the Sheriff's Office. of Los Angeles County.

The injured have already been transferred to health centers with different prognoses, from stable to critical, according to Andrew Meyer, a spokesman for the Sheriff's Office, quoted by the CBS affiliate, KCAL News.

The incident began approximately an hour after the conclusion of the celebration, around 10:30 p.m. local time (7:30 a.m. in mainland Spain), when most of the tens of thousands of attendees had already left, according to witnesses cited by the media. angelino.

In fact, some witnesses have reported that they believed that the shots were fireworks, so at first they did not give them much importance.

"When the agents arrived they saw many individuals leaving the premises screaming. The agents entered and found several more victims," ​​Meyer explained. Firefighters then confirmed ten fatalities.

The also spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's office, Sergeant Bob Boese, has confirmed that the shooter is a man who is currently on the run from the authorities, according to a press conference reported by KCAL News.

Seoung Won Choi, owner of a seafood grill restaurant located next to the scene of the incident, has told the 'Los Angeles Times' that three people broke into the premises and asked him to close the door. They reported then that there was an individual with a machine gun who also had several clips to continue shooting. The attacker apparently fired indiscriminately.

Monterey Park is a city of about 60,000 whose population is predominantly Asian (67 percent) and Latino (27 percent) in origin.