“Quiet Fellow, Would You Pet Your Dog?”: Locals React to US Mass Shooting. The 72-year-old Asian immigrant who murdered 11 people before killing himself as police closed in was a regular at the California dance club where America’s newest gun atrocity occurred. Huu Can Tran sprayed bullets throughout the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park, an Asian-majority city near Los Angeles, with a semi-automatic pistol.
He was tackled and disarmed by a teenage worker at another dance club twenty minutes later before fleeing. As the little town struggled to come to terms with the tragedy, which occurred during the Lunar New Year holiday for many in the Asian population, a picture of the culprit began to emerge.
According to a marriage document shown to CNN by Tran’s ex-wife, Tran immigrated to the United States from China. The unnamed woman told the network she met Tran two decades ago at Star Ballroom Dance Studio, where he was a regular.
The studio, formed in 1990, provides classes in everything from children’s ballet to Latin steps to belly dancing. Tran’s ex-wife claims he approached her in the club and offered her free, informal lessons. A short time later, the couple married, however, the marriage did not last.
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According to court papers obtained by CNN, the couple split in 2006. According to a man who said he knew Tran well in the late 2000s and early 2010s, he was a regular at the dancing studio at the time. Tran, according to his acquaintance, would drive from his house in San Gabriel, a city three miles (five kilometers) from Monterey Park, almost every night.
However, Tran would complain about the dancing teachers, accusing them of saying “bad things about him,” according to the man, who described Tran as “unfriendly to a lot of people there.” – ‘Something this terrible’-In 2013, he sold his home in San Gabriel.
Tran had been living in a mobile home in Hemet, a city of 90,000 people about 85 miles east of Los Angeles, according to the Los Angeles Times. The Lakes at Hemet West mobile home park, which touts itself as a “55+ active living community,” was searched by detectives from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
According to a neighbor, the entire neighborhood was stunned. “He’d stop to pet your dog, and everyone around here just thought he was some quiet little person,” Pat Roth told KTLA. “Everyone I’ve talked to is shocked that he was involved in this.”
This month, Hemet police say they had communication with Tran. “Tran attended the Hemet Police Department lobby on January 7 and 9, 2023, citing past fraud, theft, and poisoning claims involving his family in the Los Angeles area 10 to 20 years ago,” the Hemet Police Department said.
“Tran indicated that he would return to the station with documents pertaining to his charges, but he never did.” According to the Los Angeles Times, authorities are focused on Tran’s previous interactions at the two dancing studios to determine whether jealousy over a relationship was the motivation.
Tran committed suicide on Sunday as police officers approached the white van he was driving. Investigators are looking into Tran’s mental health and criminal past, according to LA County Sheriff Robert Luna. “The probe is still ongoing,” he informed reporters. “We want to know how something so terrible could happen.”