Chief Defends Delay Telling Public of Mass Shooter At-Large

MONTEREY PARK, Calif. (AP) The police chief in the California city where 20 people were shot 11 fatally at a ballroom dance hall defended his decision not to warn the public for hours that a killer was on the loose, saying Wednesday he didnt have enough information to effectively alert residents.

Monterey Park Chief Scott Wiese told The Associated Press that police in the region were alerted and it didnt make sense to send out a warning at night to residents in the predominantly Asian American city even after learning the suspect may have targeted a nearby dance club after the massacre.

Im not going to send my officers door to door waking people up and telling them that were looking for a male Asian in Monterey Park, Wiese said. "Its not going to do us any good.

The shooting at Star Ballroom Dance Studio at 10:22 p.m. Saturday occurred just an hour or so after tens of thousands of people attended Lunar New Year festivities in the city. The public wasn't notified of the mass shooting for five hours, raising questions about why an alert wasn't sent to people in the area.