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Flags Lowered To Honor Victims Of Monterey Park Shootings

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UPDATE (10:57 am): This story has been updated with a photo of Newtown Hook & Ladder firefighters lowering the Main Street flag this morning.

UPDATE (Tuesday, January 24, 2023): This story has been updated to reflect the death on Monday of another victim of Saturday's shootings, which brought the death toll to 11.

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President Joseph Biden has ordered flags lowered to half-staff following the shootings on Saturday night in Monterey Park, California, that claimed ten lives.

A proclamation issued Sunday by the President calls for US flags to be lowered “as a mark of respect for the victims of the senseless acts of violence perpetrated on January 21, 2023, in Monterey Park, California.” Flags are to remain lowered until unset January 26.

Accordingly, since no flag should fly higher than the US flag, all other flags, including state, municipal, corporate, or otherwise, should also be lowered during the same duration of time.

The Associated Press is reporting Huu Can Tran, 72, shot himself on Sunday, January 22, during a standoff with police following one shooting and one attempted shooting the previous night.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said the shooting was at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park. Officers reportedly arrived within three minutes of receiving the first call.

Ten people died, and another ten were injured. Luna did not have the exact ages of the victims but said they all appeared to be over 50.

One of those injured succumbed to their injuries on Monday, bringing the death toll of Saturday to 11 people.

About 20 to 30 minutes after the first attack, the gunman entered the Lai Lai Ballroom in nearby Alhambra. But people there wrested the weapon away from him and he fled, according to Luna.

The sheriff added that the suspect was carrying what he described as a semi-automatic pistol with an extended magazine, and a second handgun was discovered in the van where Tran was found dead.

Monterey Park is a city of about 60,000 people on the eastern edge of Los Angeles and is composed mostly of Asian immigrants from China or first-generation Asian Americans. The shooting happened in the heart of its downtown, where red lanterns decorated the streets for the Lunar New Year festivities.

An Associated Press/USA Today database on mass killings in the US shows that 2022 was one of the nation’s worst years with 42 such attacks, the second-highest number since the creation of the tracker in 2006. The database defines a mass killing as four people killed, not including the perpetrator.

Newtown Hook & Ladder firefighters tie off the rope on the Main Street flagpole after lowering the landmark flag Monday morning. —Bee Photo, Hicks
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