Sheriff seeking what drove ‘mad man’ to shoot up dance hall

MONTEREY PARK, Calif. (AP) — Investigators searching for a motive Monday in the worst mass shooting in Los Angeles County history said the gunman was previously arrested for illegally possessing a firearm, had a rifle at home, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and appeared to be manufacturing gun silencers.

Los Angeles Sheriff Robert Luna said investigators had not yet established why 72-year-old Huu Can Tran gunned down patrons Saturday night at a ballroom dance hall in Monterey Park, where tens of thousands attended Lunar New Year festivities earlier that evening. Tran later killed himself as police closed in on him.

“What drove a mad man to do this? We don’t know, but we intend to find out,” Luna said.

A man who said he had been a longtime friend of Tran told The Associated Press that the gunman once frequented the dance hall and another that he also targeted and griped about the way he thought people treated him there.

Tran fired 42 rounds at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio, killing 11 people and wounding nine. He then drove to another nearby dance hall where an employee wrestled a modified 9 mm submachine gun-style semi-automatic weapon away from him, Luna said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom met Monday with Brandon Tsay, who works part-time at the dance club founded by his grandparents, and said he was a true hero.

“This remarkable young man who without any hesitation — though with moments of fear — took it upon himself to save countless lives,” Newsom said. “Who knows how many lives he saved.”

Tsay said he was proud of his actions but did not want to discuss them so the focus would stay on the victims.

“Some of these people I know personally,” Tsay said outside his family’s home. They come to our studio. It’s a tight knit community and I hope they can heal from this tragic event”

Tran fatally shot himself Sunday as officers surrounded the van he was inside. A handgun was recovered from the van, which matched descriptions of the vehicle he used to get away from the dance studio.

Sheriff’s deputies from Los Angeles County searched Tran’s home in a gated senior community in the town of Hemet, a little over an hour’s drive from the site of the massacre.

Luna said his officers found a .308-caliber rifle, an unknown amount of bullets and evidence he was making homemade firearm suppressors that muffle the sound of the weapons.

Tran had visited Hemet police twice this month to report he was the victim of fraud, theft and poisoning by family members a decade or two ago in the LA area, Hemet police spokesperson Alan Reyes told The Associated Press. Tran said he would return to the station with documentation but never did.

The death toll rose to 11 Monday after health officials announced that one of the 10 people wounded had died, officials said

My Nhan, 65, Lilian Li, 63, and Xiujuan Yu, 57, were identified by the Los Angeles coroner’s office as three of the six women killed. Two other women were in their 60s, and one was in her 70s. Valentino Alvero, 68, was the only man identified. Three men in their 70s and one in his 60s were also killed.

Nhan’s family said in a statement that she was a loving person whose kindness was contagious, and loved to dance.

“Unfairly, Saturday was her last dance,” the family said. “We are starting the Lunar New Year broken. We never imagined her life would end so suddenly.”

Authorities have shared little about Tran, who owned a trucking company in Monterey Park from 2002 to 2004, according to California business records.

He was once arrested for unlawful possession of a firearm in 1990 and had a limited criminal history, Luna said. The sheriff could not immediately say if a gun arrest at a time when firearms laws were different would have barred him from owning weapons.