Huu Can Tran has been identified as the sole suspect in the shooting that killed 11 people at a dance hall in California on Chinese New Year.
9 more injured in the accident massacrewith other deaths prevented by heroic deeds of a worker The one who apparently disarmed Tran with a gun in hand when he entered a second dance hall in Los Angeles County.
The 72-year-old man shot himself as he approached the police van after fleeing the scene.
It turned out that he was a dance teacher at the same venue where he was previously accused of shooting.
As police clarified what happened, those who knew him shared other details about the alleged shooter.
Here’s what we know about him so far.
Tran’s connections to the dance studio
Tran is reportedly a regular at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park, which is said to have fired 42 shots on Saturday, January 21.
An ex-wife of Tran told CNN that she met him at the studio nearly 20 years ago and taught there.
A longtime acquaintance of Tran said that in the late 2000s and early 2010s, he went to the studio almost every night.
They told CNN that he was “hostile to a lot of people out there” and that Tran claimed the trainers didn’t like him at the time and said “bad things about him”.
It’s unclear whether Tran has been to the dance studio recently and knows anyone who was inside during the shoot.
Quick to anger but ‘never used violence’ before
Tran’s ex-wife said that CNN Tran was never violent, but was quick to anger if, for example, she missed a step while dancing.
Adam Hood, one of Tran’s tenants, told Reuters that Tran is a nervous, aggressive person, doesn’t have many friends, but loves ballroom dancing, which is his main social activity.
“She was a good dancer,” said Mr Hood, who met Tran in the early 2000s and said they bonded because of their shared experience as Chinese immigrants.
“But he distrusted the people in the studio, he was angry and distrustful. I think that’s enough.”
Hood added that Tran complained that people in the studio were talking behind their backs.
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Tran’s personal life
The shooter lived in a mobile home park for people over 55 in Hemet, California, about 65 miles east of where the murders took place.
He used to live closer to the dance studio. Records show he lived in San Gabriel, near Monterey Park, from the early 1990s until 2014.
According to Mr. Hood, Tran and his ex-wife divorced in 2005. He never married again and had no girlfriend.
Tran had an active trucking license and owned a company he founded in 2002 called Tran’s Trucking.
Interactions with the police
Police chief Scott Wiese said at a news conference Monday that police in Monterey Park had no prior interaction with Tran.
But Hemet police spokesman Alan Reyes told the Associated Press that Tran visited Hemet police twice this month to report that he had been the victim of fraud, theft and poisoning by family members in the LA area ten or twenty years ago.
Tran said he would return to the police station with the documents, but he did not.
After the clashes, sheriff’s deputies from Los Angeles County searched Tran’s home and found a 308-caliber rifle, an unknown amount of bullets, and evidence that he had made homemade firearm suppressors that drowned out the sound of the guns.