MONTEREY PARK (CNS) - The man accused of fatally shooting 11 people at a Monterey Park ballroom had previously expressed to police what some believe were paranoid views regarding his family and a woman he was dating, among others, according to a report published today.
Huu Can Tran visited the Hemet Police Department station this month and told officers there that his family tried to poison him and was trying to defraud him, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Tran called the San Gabriel Police Department on Dec. 26, 1992, and claimed a woman he was dating had threatened to kill him and was trying to lure him into a trap, according to department records obtained by The Times.
Tran clamed the a sister of the woman he was dating called him and said she belonged to a Taiwanese gang and would have him killed if he continued to date the woman.
The claims Tran made to police appeared to have no merit, according to The Times.
Tran, who at the time said he was working as a carpet cleaner, also claimed a man who lived in Torrance called him to ask him to immediately come to Torrance to clean his carpets. Because the husband and the sister-in-law of the woman he was dating also lived in Torrance, Tran suspected the call was a "set up" and instead of going to Torrance called the police.
Tran agreed to place a recording device on his phone line at home but according to police Tran told them it did not work because of a malfunction. He later told police he "did not want prosecution but only wanted police to be aware of the situation in case something happened to him," according to a police report.
The officer contacted the husband, who told police he had never called Tran or threatened him.
Tran is accused of the fatal Jan. 21 shooting at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio on the eve of the Lunar New Year. Police found him the next day in a van at a Torrance strip man, dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
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