Police patrol the scene along Garvey Avenue in Monterey Park, California, on January 21, 2023. AFP
At least ten people have been killed in a mass shooting in Monterey Park in California, US, police said.
The incident happened during the Chinese Lunar New Year celebration, near Los Angeles. Earlier in the day, thousands of people attended the annual festival.
Videos shared on social media showed heavy police presence in the area.
Suspect still at large
The suspect is still at large and the motive behind the shooting is not known yet.
Reports said the shooting came at a dance venue an hour after a Lunar New Year celebration on Saturday.
Local resident Wong Wei told the Los Angeles Times his friend had been at the dance club, and had been in the bathroom when the shooting erupted.
When she emerged, she saw a gunman and three bodies — two women and one person who he said was the boss of the club.
The paper reported that Seung Won Choi, who owns a seafood barbecue restaurant near the scene said three people had run into his restaurant and told him to lock the door.
The three said there was a man with a semiautomatic gun who had multiple rounds of ammunition on him, and would reload every time he ran out, Choi told the paper.
The Times reported that tens of thousands of people had gathered earlier in the day for the two-day Lunar New Year festival, which is one of the largest in southern California.
Monterey Park, is home to around 61,000 people, the majority of them Asian or Asian American.
Saturday was the start of the two-day festival, which is one of the largest Lunar New Year events in Southern California.
Mass shootings in US
Gun violence is a huge problem in the United States, which saw 647 mass shootings last year, according to the Gun Violence Archive website, defined as an incident with four or more people shot or killed, not including the shooter.
More than 44,000 people died from gunshot wounds in 2022, more than half of which were suicides.
The country has more weapons than people: one in three adults owns at least one weapon and nearly one in two adults lives in a home where there is a weapon.
With inputs from agencies
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