At least 10 people have been killed and 10 injured in a mass shooting east of Los Angeles following a Lunar New Year celebration that attracted thousands, police said.
Sergeant Bob Boese of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said the shooting, which took place late on Saturday, occurred at a business on Garvey Avenue in Monterey Park.
The male suspect is still at large, according to police.
As a result of the shooting and out of respect for the victims, the police said Lunar Year festivities in Monterey Park for Sunday have been cancelled.
Reporting from Monterey Park, journalist and videographer Sean Backner-Carmitchel told Al Jazeera the details of the incident were still “fairly unclear”.
“We are waiting for the names [of those deceased] and the motive of the suspect,” he added. “A lot of the people who have gathered out here from the community are in shock.”
Monterey Park is a city of about 60,000 people with a large Asian population that’s about 16km (10 miles) from downtown Los Angeles.
“Our hearts go out to those who lost loved ones tonight in our neighboring city, Monterey Park, where a mass shooting just occurred,” Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia said in a tweet.
Seung Won Choi, who owns the Clam House seafood barbecue restaurant across the street from where the shooting happened, told the Los Angles Times that three people rushed into his business and told him to lock the door.
The people also told Choi that there was a shooter with a machine gun who had multiple rounds of ammunition on him so he could reload.
Choi said he believes the shooting took place at a dance club.
Saturday was the start of the two-day festival, which is one of the largest Lunar New Year events in southern California.
The incident marks the fifth mass shooting in the US this month and the deadliest since 21 people were killed in a school in Uvalde, Texas, according to the AP/USA Today database on mass killings in the US.
The latest violence comes two months after five people were killed at a Colorado Springs nightclub. (AlJazeera)