Sheriff: Dance hall shooter had gun arrest, extra ammo

MONTEREY PARK, Calif. (AP) — Investigators searching for a motive Monday in the worst mass shooting in Los Angeles County history said the gunman was previously arrested for illegally owning a firearm, had a rifle at home, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and appeared to be manufacturing gun silencers.

Los Angeles Sheriff Robert Luna said investigators had not yet established why 72-year-old Huu Can Tran gunned down revelers during a Lunar New Year celebration at a Monterey Park dance hall he was said to frequent.

“What drove a mad man to do this? We don’t know, but we intend to find out,” Luna said.

Tran fired 42 rounds at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio on Saturday night, killing 11 people and wounding nine. He then drove to another nearby dance hall where Brandon Tsay, who works at the establishment started by his grandparents, wrestled a modified 9 mm submachine gun-style semi-automatic weapon away from him and saved “countless lives,” Luna said.

“He's the hero that disarmed the suspect,” Luna said. “What a brave man he is.”

Officers who had surrounded a van matching descriptions of the getaway vehicle found Tran dead inside Sunday from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A handgun was recovered from the van.

Sheriff’s deputies from Los Angeles County searched Tran's home in a gated senior community in the town of Hemet, a little over an hour’s drive from the site of the massacre, Hemet police spokesperson Alan Reyes told The Associated Press.

Luna said his officers found a .308-caliber rifle, an unknown amount of bullets and evidence he was making homemade firearm suppressors that muffle the sound of the weapons.

Tran had visited Hemet police twice this month to report he was the victim of fraud, theft and poisoning by family members a decade or two ago in the LA...