gunshot after an overnight manhunt. officials say this 72-year-old man murdered 11, injured nine more. opened fire during lunar new yore celebrations at an asian american dance hall saturday night. we are so surprised. here is safe. i m scared. reporter: this was apparently an old man attacking the middle-aged and older out dancing. but why? we still are not clear on the motive. the investigation continues. reporter: apparently the suspect taught dance here at one point, met his now ex-wife at this very dance hall. they divorced in 2006. she told cnn he could be quick to anger if he missed a dance step, for example. was it an issue of being disgruntled or an issue of domestic violence? we don t know, unfortunately. i was told in the past he was a frequent attendee of this dance hall. reporter: his last known address, a trailer home in a senior community further east in hemet was sevearched. hemet pd came by twice alleging fraud, theft and poison allegations invo
run into, without any hesitation. from the moment the call came out to the moment they went through that door, we re talking about minutes. they didn t think about what they were going to encounter, all they thought about was getting in there and helping the people that needed help and stopping that gunman. they are feeling it today. i ve sat down with each one of them, and i guess kind of like that father figure that the chief becomes, kind of wrapped my arms around them. my whole department has collapsed onto them to make sure that they re safe and they understand how proud of them i am and how proud the department is of them. they want to stand that line. they re back on duty or they will be soon, but i need to make sure that my officers are safe. officer wellness is a huge part of being a police officer in today s age.
it s only human to keep moving forward. we re also following the growing fallout right now from the biden classified document investigation. tonight, the u.s. attorney general merrick garland is clearly on the defensive over the justice department s handling of duelling probes of the president and his predecessor. cnn s chief white house correspondent phil mattingly is joining us right now. phil so, what are you hearing over there at the white house? there has been a continued focus on cooperation, making clear the president an his personal attorneys have made
reporter: his last known address, a trailer home in a senior community further east in hemet was sevearched. hemet pd came by twice alleging fraud, theft and poison allegations involving his family in the los angeles area ten to 20 years ago but he never came back. and then saturday night. additional units requested, multiple victims, gunshot wounds. reporter: 10:22 p.m. police respond to a shooting at the star ballroom and dance studio in monterey park, a suburb of l.a. it was chaos. there were wounded people, there were people trying to flee out all the doors. reporter: around 10:40 p.m., the gunman arrived at another dance hall in nearby alhambra. i turned around and saw that there was an asian man holding a gun. when he was looking around the room, it looked like he was looking for targets, people to home. reporter: brandon was getting ready to close up for the night. when i got the courage, i
was it the day of? was it a week before? what drove a madman to do this? we don t know. but we intend to find out. and we re as curious as you are, because it s i mean this is disturbing. i don t how can you even come to reason that somebody would even think about doing something like this? it s horrendous. [ inaudible question ] allegations about family poisoning? we ve heard the same information. i believe the information we have is that the hemet police department put that out. i would recommend you call them. we don t have specific information, although the investigators will our investigators will be looking at all of those factors to see if