The now-deceased suspect in this weekend’s deadly mass shooting in Monterey Park, California, brought multiple allegations to police earlier this month, according to authorities.
Police in Hemet, California, where the alleged shooter is believed to have lived, released a statement on Monday.
The man “visited the Hemet Police Department lobby on January 7 and 9, 2023, alleging past fraud, theft, and poisoning allegations involving his family in the Los Angeles area 10 to 20 years ago,” police said.
Police added the man “stated he would return to the station with documentation regarding his allegations but never returned.”
The suspect, whom the Daily Wire is not naming in keeping with a policy of depriving mass shooters of undeserved notoriety, is accused of killing 11 people and wounding several more at a dance studio on Saturday night.
In the hours that followed, the suspect was thwarted in carrying out a second attack at another location and then died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside a white van during a standoff with police, officials said Sunday.
As part of an investigation, authorities conducted a search warrant at the suspect’s mobile home inside a gated senior community in Hemet, about 85 miles southeast of Monterey Park, according to KTLA.
Investigators found a .308 caliber rifle, hundreds of rounds of ammo, and items suggesting that the suspect was building homemade firearm suppressors, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said on Monday.
Luna also said a motive has not yet been established. “We want to know as much as all of you, and we’re working very hard to attain that,” he added.
People who knew the suspect said he used to frequent the Monterey Park dance studio where the attack took place on Lunar New Year’s Eve, and he even met his ex-wife there, CNN reported. Records show the suspect filed for divorce in late 2005, which a judge approved the following year, and was an immigrant from China.