Everything's on the table.
We don't know if this is specifically
a hate crime defined by law.
But who walks into a dance
hall and guns down 20 people?
The description we have
now is of a male Asian.
Does that matter? I don't know.
I can tell you that
everything's on the table.
Our detectives are looking at every
possibility with our partners.
Age range somewhere between
the age of 30 and 50.
There is a wide range and those
are things that our detectives as
we're sitting here now for the last
several hours and they we have
several homicide teams working here.
It's amazing when you can pick up the
phone and I have other agencies coming.
What can we do to help?
We want this guy off the street,
so we're working very hard and we're
hoping actually we will should be
putting out a better description
here in the next several hours.
The actual scene I have not.
I've been at the crime scene,
but not the actual shooting scene.
Based on the.
Of the bodies there was.
An intentional direction that
the shooter was aimed at?
Or does it look like it was
random across the board?
Those are questions that we will be
able to answer, just not at this time.
Ammunition.
And.
Possible connections to this.
Yes. So let me start off with the last
question regarding the city of Alhambra.
We are working diligently with
the Alhambra Police Department.
We believe that there's an incident that
may be related or not quite there yet,
but it's it's definitely on our radar
screen where a a male Asian suspect.
Walked into a a dance hall.
And he walked in there with a firearm.
And some individuals wrestled
the firearm away from them.
And the that individual took off.
Now some witnesses in
that area are describing.
A white cargo van.
We don't know though,
at this time if it is connected.
That white man should be considered
a ban of interest at this point.
Again, detectives looking at
multiple locations, multiple clues,
and I know how hard they're working.
In regards to the firearm,
obviously there were multiple rounds
fired at the first location where we
have all the victims and survivors.
We don't know how many rounds were fired.
Different weapons have been described.
In regards to the specific weapon,
we don't believe it was an assault
rifle at this time, but again,
that's part of the investigation that
we're looking at just just to make sure,
and I don't want to put out bad information.
I always have hope and we have
amazing detectives out here,
the resources that they have.
Our utilizing out here, there are
multiple leads that we are following.
But please keep in mind our priority.
Here is obviously we get to the victims,
we get to the survivors, we're gonna
wrap our arms around the families.
But the next top priority is to
arrest the person who did this.
Charge them and get them prosecuted
to the full extent of the law,
no matter what the intent,
motive or anything was so.
That's always a possibility.
Again, very early on in this
investigation, that's a possibility.
When you're a good detective,
you don't take anything off the table.
Everything's a possibility,
and that could be one of them.
We are still in the process of interviewing
dozens of witnesses and I'm not going to
get into detail yet about what they said.
Look at how many cameras are in front of me.
Suspect could be watching right now.
Is there a weapon? Disarm. We do.
Not at this time that that
could be. From the crime here,
it absolutely could be. We don't know yet.
In regards to the 10 deceased victims,
my understanding we have
five females and five males.
In regards to their specific ages,
we have not been able to
identify any of them yet.
We will do that with our partners at the
coroner's office when the time comes.
It happened.
I want to see it happen within
20 to 30 minutes of the first
incident that we're here discussing.
It happened after the Monterey Park incident.
I don't have that information,
but there were, there were
dozens of people in there.
Widal shelter in place
order for the community.
We don't believe that's necessary at this
time, but we will consistently evaluate
that and if we believe that there's an
absolute danger to the public, we're
going to take every precaution necessary.
We have a lot of resources out all over the
place and I don't think we're there yet,
but it's always an option in the toolbox.
We don't have that specific information yet
because we have not identified them yet,
but the assumption is that probably yes, but.
No.
Advertise. Their music.
I don't have that specific information,
but we'll put that out later.
Your team for scouring video
right now to get him running away.
Our teams are doing a lot of things
right now. That's one of many.
When they went in.
Chief Weiss, if you want to talk about the
initial response to the scene, thank you.
So we received 911 calls starting
at 10:22 in the evening.
The incident, as you all know,
is very close to the police station.
We were just wrapping up the final.
Shut down of the Lunar New Year event.
I had dozens of officers here.
Throughout the day in the evening
at the Lunar New Year event,
so our response to the
scene was within minutes.
I don't have the exact time the
initial officers that responded.
Saw dozens of people exiting.
Some were injured, some weren't.
And we handled them as they came out,
began to triage that and my officers put
together a React team and went inside
to see if the suspect was still inside.
They were probably entering
that business within.
A minute or two of responding and that's
how we've been trained and that's how
we respond to situations like this
and I want to address the shelter in place.
We have a very tight community here.
They share information with us and our
partnership with our community is very,
very strong.
We've put out.
Information to them about.
Their safety and we welcome
their questions to us.
I have dozens of officers here on the
street today, not just from my agency,
from agencies all over, both local,
county, state and federal.
This is a safe community right now,
but we're going to continue to be
vigilant until we take this suspect
into custody wherever they are.
That's all part of the investigation.
Everything's on the table.
And the more people you talk to,
the more information we get.
And our detectives are amazing. And
just to understand the time frame
between the Monterey Park incident
and the Alhambra incident. Yeah.
What time was the incident in Alhambra?
To get a better idea,
this was 1022 in Monterey Park.
That lasted a little while.
You said it was about 20
minutes to get to Alhambra.
What time was that one?
So if we're looking at the Alhambra
incident, approximately 1022.
And from the information
preliminarily that we have now,
we're talking about 7,
between 17 minutes to 20 minutes
later the Alhambra incident occurs.
So Monterey Park we first,
Alhambra was yes and Monterey Park
unfortunately occurred first. Thank you.
Involved in.
Apart from the Alhambra and
Monterey Park incident.
Yeah. I don't have information
about that at this time.
Maybe that's just some new
detail that's coming up.
Whether it's out there,
we'll clarify that.
I don't have.
The business is well.
Yeah. Can we pause on that
on the name of the business,
just out of respect for the business
owners and the victims and survivors?
And then we'll work on you as
soon as we can get that out.
And I heard the question over
here to my right about caliber.
That's still, we're still looking
at that and I would prefer not
to put the caliber out at this
second just because it's going to,
it may hinder what we're trying to do.
And again remember our priority is
we got to get this guy in custody and
that's exactly what we planned to do.
Not in detail at this time,
other than what I described earlier
that the this suspect walked
in armed and he was disarmed
by a couple of individuals.
So that's that's.
Yes. Yes. And if that changes for
any reason, we will immediately
notify and at this point, all of you
at this point, can you say
anything about the weapon
that was found at Alhambra?
Was that a a long rifle?
Was that an AR?
What? What was that?
It was not an assault rifle. Thank you.