There has been a mass murder during a Lunar New Year celebration in Monterey Park, California. This comes to a community that has tens of thousands of Asian Americans, many of whom are celebrating the important holiday as part of the Chinese calendar as well as the calendars of other East Asian nations. At least ten have been killed.
A gunman has murdered ten people and injured over a dozen others in Monterey Park, where tens of thousands of Asian American families had gathered to celebrate the Lunar New Year that day. He is still at large.
— Simu Liu (@SimuLiu) January 22, 2023
This should be getting way more coverage in media. A terrible act.
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KNX notes that numbers of dead and injured are not confirmed by officials at this time, and are based on police scanner traffic.
According to census statistics, about 65 percent of Monterey Park’s 60,000 residents are of Asian descent. The small city has reportedly requested assistance from neighboring cities in responding to the crisis.
According to the Los Angeles Times, one law enforcement source said “the casualty count totaled more than a dozen people.” A restaurant proprietor shared a harrowing story:
Seung Won Choi, who owns the Clam House seafood barbecue restaurant across the street from where the shooting happened, said three people rushed into his restaurant and told him to lock the door. They told him that there was a man with a machine gun in the area.
The people also told Choi that the shooter had multiple rounds of ammunition on him, so that once his ammunition ran out, the shooter reloaded.
Choi said he believes the shooting took place at a dance club in the area.
The shooting took place sometime after 10 p.m. near the site of a Chinese Lunar New Year celebration. Tens of thousands had gathered Saturday for the start of a two-day festival, one of the largest Lunar New Year events in the region.
John, 27, who declined to give his last name, lives near the shooting site. He got home around 10 p.m. and heard about 4 or 5 gunshots, he said. Then he heard police cruisers “smashing” down the street. He went downstairs at around 11:20 p.m. to see if the shooting occurred at the New Year festival.
This is a breaking story and will be updated as more information is released.
