Salem Police To Increase Asian Business Patrols After Mass Shooting

SALEM, MA — Salem police officers will be more visible in and around the city's Asian-owned and Asian-themed businesses in the coming days following the California dance hall shootings that killed 11 and injured 24 on Saturday night.

Salem Police Chief Lucas Miller said in a release on Monday that the added patrols are not because there is evidence of a coordinated attack or specific threat in the city, but "because we want everyone in Salem to know that we are always on duty, we care about every resident and visitor, and that we think about what goes on both within Salem and (beyond)."

"Salem's iconic and historical status are certainly considerations," Miller, a former New York City captain, said of the city potentially being a target for a copycat crime. "Salem has a small but significant Asian population and we take hate crime very seriously in the SPD."

Police on Sunday found the body of the suspected Monterey Park mass shooter in the pair of Lunar New Year attacks. The shooter has been identified as 72-year-old Huu Can Tran, of Hemet, California. Late Sunday night, authorities raided his home in a mobile park for seniors.

Nearly 12 hours after the mass shooting, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said police officers in Torrance pulled up behind the suspect's van at about 10:20 a.m. in the area of Hawthorne and Sepulveda boulevards. Luna said Tran drove into the parking lot of a shopping center, and as officers exited their vehicle, they heard a gunshot coming from inside the van.

A few hours later, SWAT Team officers breached the van and found Tran's body slumped over in the driver's seat, Luna said.

"We have seen no report of a possible motive, but the fact that the victims were predominately of Chinese descent and that the shooting took place during a Chinese Lunar New Year celebration, makes an anti-Asian or anti-Chinese motivation more than a distinct possibility," Miller said. "That the perpetrator was Asian himself is not evidence against this assumption. It is also of little comfort to victims and their families."

Salem police said that any resident that becomes aware of something suspicious, "particularly concerning anti-Asian sentiment," should contact the SPD at 978-744-1212 or 911 in an emergency.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)