By Jocelyn Gecker and Terence Chea, AP
An employee opened fire Wednesday at a California rail yard serving Silicon Valley, killing eight people before ending his own life, authorities said.
The suspect was an employee of the Valley Transportation Authority, which provides bus, light rail and other transit services throughout Santa Clara County, the largest county in the Bay Area, authorities said.
The attacker was identified as 57-year-old Sam Cassidy, according to two law enforcement officials. Investigators offered no immediate word on a possible motive.
The shooting took place around 6:30 a.m. at a light rail facility that includes a transit-control center, parking for trains and a maintenance yard.
Sheriff’s spokesman Deputy Russell Davis said the attack also resulted in “multiple major injuries.” He did not know the type of weapon used. He said the victims included VTA employees. Authorities did not release any of the victims’ names.
“These folks were heroes during COVID-19. The buses never stopped running, VTA didn’t stop running. They just kept at work, and now we’re really calling on them to be heroes a second time to survive such a terrible, terrible tragedy,” Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez.
Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said it was his understanding the shooting happened inside the VTA building.
Victims’ grief-stricken families sat huddled together, holding hands and crying, after learning they had lost a loved one, Rosen told reporters, describing the scene inside a county building.
“They’re just sitting and holding hands and crying,” Rosen said. “It’s terrible. It’s awful. It’s raw. People are learning they lost their husband, their son, their brother.” He said about 100 people were inside the family reunification center.
Police vehicles and orange crime-scene tape blocked off the area, and reporters were kept at a distance The rail yard is in the city’s administrative neighborhood, near the sheriff’s office and city and county offices.
BREAKING: At least eight people are confirmed dead after the mass shooting at a San Jose rail yard, in addition to the suspected shooter, police say https://t.co/BuWF2htFwf pic.twitter.com/ksGRW3gXSx
— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 26, 2021
Bomb squads were searching the rail complex after receiving information about possible explosive devices inside the building, Davis said.
Officials were also investigating a house fire that broke out shortly before the shooting, Davis said. Public records show Cassidy owned a two-story home where firefighters responded Wednesday morning.
VTA trains were already out on morning runs when the shooting occurred. Light rail service was to be suspended at noon and replaced with bus bridges, agency Chairman Glenn Hendricks told a news conference.
“It’s just very difficult for everyone to be able try to wrap their heads around and understand what has happened,” Hendricks said.
Outside the scene, Michael Hawkins told The Mercury News that he was waiting for his mother, Rochelle Hawkins, who had called him from a co-worker’s phone to assure him that she was safe.
When the shooting started, “she got down with the rest of her coworkers” and dropped her cellphone, Michael Hawkins told the newspaper. Rochelle Hawkins did not see the shooter, and she was not sure how close she had been to the attacker, her son said.
San Jose, the 10th-largest city in the U.S. with more than a million people, is about 50 miles south of San Francisco in the heart of Silicon Valley.
Right On Time
Was there a “gun free zone” sign posted? If not, maybe they should consider putting one up. That would have stopped this.
Joe Biden and ALL that voted for him caused this.
Really? And just how did Joe Biden accomplish this?
Really? And just how did Joe Biden accomplish this?
The exact same way YOU and your little group of scholars insist that Trump did…
Concealed carrying employees is the solution.
Wasn’t this mass shooting done by an employee with a concealed weapon?
This happened in the same county where the sheriff is being investigated for a “pay for play” CCW licensing racket. If everyone was LEGALLY allowed to conceal a weapon, someone may have stopped this before the death toll climbed that high.
Yeah, the shooter concealed a weapon, ILLEGALLY.
I understand you were being sarcastic but……
No it was done by a killer who intended to create a mass casualty event with a very conspicuously carried, brandished, and fired weapon. A regular employee with a CCW could possibly stop or deter said killer. Multiple employees CCW’ing would make those odds even better.
I know you’re dumber than a bucket of piss, but intent matters when it comes to carrying a utilizing a weapon.
Saw the Mayor on T V acting like he was all broken up over this and said he would be getting back to media shortly with measures that would prevent this from happening again. Sigh, more gun control. ” never waste a crisis “.
Arrest the guilty!
He’s dead.
Punish the innocent!
Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome each time.
“WTF?! Our strict gun control laws didn’t stop an individual from committing murder!? We need more strict gun control laws!! That’ll stop individuals from committing murder!!”
It’s almost pathological at this point, like a perverted Pavlov response that viciously feasts on individual liberty until naught but scarred bone remains, and then the pack turns on itself in a horrific display of savagery and unchecked primal violence as they battle for the last scraps off the table of a once-proud nation.
Whoever said “May you live in interesting times” had no goddamn idea what he was talking about.
gun control laws didn’t stop an individual from committing murder!?
Not to mention that the asshole skipped right past that whole “murder is illegal” thing… Maybe they need stricter “anti-murder” laws or do PSAs on local news, billboards, busses and stuff to constantly remind those shitheads that murder is a crime…
In Washington, D.C., principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the White House will continue to stay in close contact with local officials in San Jose, before using the shooting as an opportunity to call for Congress to strengthen background checks.
This is exactly what they will do and will keep doing it until they kill the 2A.
You had the deraigned Chipmunk testifying for confirmation earlier and then this. One thing that is notably missing is you never hear the dems talk about big city violence, the black on black killings. That silence is very telling of what their real motives are.
Happens on the same day as the Butcher of Waco is being grilled in confirmation hearings.
There’s no such thing as coincidence.
I was just thinking this. Whenever there is something gun related being passed in government, a shooting occurs somewhere. Ok, so a shooting always occur somewhere but a shooting the media can latch on to and propagandize…….
Another disillusioned democrat voter, but I’m SURE it was the gun’s fault!!
It will be the gun’s AND Trump’s fault.
But Guns are already super-duper illegal in California, aren’t they???
I am sure a public transit agency is also a gun free zone so how could this have happened when the state has already used such strong language?
Sounds like a middle-aged white man. I had nothing to do with it despite my elder white man status. Coincidentally I got my hated FOID card renewal in the mail from the ILL state po-leece today. 2 weeks to the day after it was electronically sent in! Minor miracle as reports of 18 month waitsabound…
6 months for my renewal on Foid. At 11 months on my ccl renewal.
Similar time on my ILL drivers license by mail. “Good driver”😏I’ve had a least 25 4473 checks and ALL instantly approved. I have a rare & unusual name which no doubt helps. No CCL. I carry occasionally-the hell with the kings permission!. Eff ILL. Trying to move to Indiana next year after the wife gets SSI. Buddy moved last year already has lifetime carry& his wife. ILL sucks.
I am sure a public transit agency is also a gun free zone
Pretty much EVERYWHERE in California is a gun free zone…
“MOSTLY ILLEGAL”… to repeat a phrase.
Impossible. California has all that great gun control that prevents criminal misuse of firearms!
Multiple sources identified the suspect as Sam James Cassidy, 57, a technician at the rail yard where the 6:34 a.m. shooting at the VTA light rail yard occurred during a morning meeting of shift employees.
In addition, KTVU has learned that a fire reported at Cassidy’s home on Angmar Court about the same time is linked to the mass shooting, the mayor confirmed.
That address became the site of a second crime scene by mid-morning. There were reports of gasoline and ammunition found throughout the house. A massive response of first responders and law enforcement surrounded his home into the afternoon.
In addition, there was a structure fire on the 1800 block of Smith Avenue at a plywood and lumber business at about 6:29 a.m., five minutes before the first call for a shooting at the VTA light-rail yard and is about five miles away from the VTA site.
In a phone interview, Cassidy’s ex-wife told KTVU the two divorced in 2009 and she did not have much contact with him since then.
She lived there for about 10 years with him and did not want to say much more.
A check of court records shows he didn’t have a major criminal background in Santa Clara County, but he did had some traffic violations.
The mother of a VTA employee told KTVU that her son thought Cassidy was “strange.”
Others in the neighborhood described him as a loner.
I have friends who work there. Thank god they were all out on routes or otherwise reported in safe.
I really hope he used CA compliant guns. I mean then they can’t complain right?
Seriously California has had it’s fair share of mass shootings. This despite the most restrictive gun laws in the nation. Kinda makes you think criminals don’t follow gun laws.
And crazies too.
The socialist progressive’s who run California have yet to figure out how to make California a complete “gun free zone”? By banning the keeping of guns in your own home. But they are trying.
But they have made it impossible to get a ccw. Unless you bribe your local CA sheriff office.
Are you sure it is impossible to get a CCW in California without bribery?
It depends on the County and the Sheriff. SF and LA counties, impossible. The areas around Fresno and Roseville, fairly easy. You go through the usual hoops and you shall be issued a permit. I know this as I have friends and relatives in these area who have CCWs. I have no idea about other counties. The general rule is, the more rural the location, the easier it is to get one.
It is kinda moot though as most places in Ca. won’t let you in if you carry. The worst they can do is ask you to leave ( except for Fed, State buildings).
I was being sarcastic. Most of California issues. I have my CCW. Most everyone I know does. And it is far from moot. Very few places in California have “No Gun” signs. And yes, they hold no weight of law.
Saw this on the news around noon Eastern, checked the calendar thinking it must be an April Fools joke, no way this could happen in california with all their super effective gun control laws… Oh well, just write a couple more, that’ll do it… I know limit firearms to single shot .22, no removable magazines, tax ALL .22 ammo at $5.95 per round and require a notarized letter of permission signed by both parents or a legal guardian…
But this is in CA, the gun control paradise… unpossible!
We’ll just have to wait to see what possibly could be so bad that a perp with a good paying job, retirement, etc. had to take out his problems on his coworkers.
Whatever it was it is never a reason to zero in on the 2A and the millions or gun owners and the NRA or anyone else who had zip, nada, Nothing to do with the perp’s actions, etc. In other words all the Jim Crow Gun Control ambulance chasers who think they have something can stfu.
Gun control was never meant to stop all gun crimes. Like drunk driving and seat belt laws & enforcement, they are meant to reduce, significantly, the occurrences.
“Like drunk driving and seat belt laws & enforcement, they are meant to reduce, significantly, the occurrences.”
It’s already illegal to murder, so no new laws are necessary… 🙂
Gun control was never meant to stop any crime only disarm and control the law abiding.
I watched a live network stream for this on Youtube, and it was preceded by Mark and Gabby Giffords ad asking for a $.22 donation. Talk about waving a bloody shirt and dancing in the blood of victims.
CA has just about every gun law a banner has dreamed up, and certainly everything that has been proposed on a national level (red flag, universal background check, “assault weapons” ban, and mandatory govt serialization of homebuilt firearms, etc) If nothing else, it proves that the prohibitions don’t work. Evil or insane people will continue to do bad things while defenseless people sit as targets until the police have a chance to arrive on scene and decide to take action.
As long as suicidal people can be sure their death will make nationwide news, this will continue. I suspect the talk of gun control also feeds.
Recently a man in Kentucky stopped a BLM mob armed with AR-15’s and semi-automatic pistols. And all he had was his five shot North American Arms mini revolver. Sometimes that is all you need. And while wearing your work uniform, that might be the only gun that you can reasonably concealed while on duty, at your civilian job.
Any defensive gun is better than no gun at all.
I know the result with the crowd would be similar just about anywhere but was that man arrested for some nonsense brandishing charge later as we would typically see in the Northeast?
It seems as if he stayed within the 10 round restriction. Just think if he was allowed a 30 round magazine.
Proof that gun control works.
Blame Harris. Blame Newscum. They left the state in shambles. Sh!t policies and letting scum out of prisons. Drives people to do stupid sh!t like this.
Recall Newscum.
Recall Newscum
Last I heard that was already a thing in progress…
It is already illegal to murder, after the first kill, the rest are freebees. I know that this sounds horrible, but hey, it’s true. I used to have to work with a guy that everyone at our dept would take bets on which day he would come to work and kill everyone. He retired and I lost the bet. I know, it sucks, $20.00 lost.
Police have no idea why this happened.
Early morning, waiting in line, getting frustrated.
A voice from the crowd is heard,
” Oh gawd just kill me now.”
” Who said that ?”
*Bang bang bang*
“Multiple sources identified the suspect as Sam James Cassidy, 57“
Deep cover antifa agent?
Undercover socialist activist?
Fifth column Marxist terrorist?
No, just old white guy with anger management and self control issues, with ready access to firearms.
Oh goody a mass shooter that finally fits my agenda!
You can’t rule out 2 or 3 just because of his age and skin color. Your average gang banger has substantially readier access to guns – cheaper with no background checks. They are also more apt to shoot you for wearing the wrong color shoes.
Yes, it seems his bio does indeed fit the average gangbanger profile:
“But an ex-girlfriend called him abusive and at least one neighbor said he had a hot temper, so he tried to avoid him if he could.
“I talked to him five times in five years,” said Realtor Doug Suh, who lives across the street on Angmar Court. “I say ‘hi,’ and he stared at me, dirty looking all the time. So I ignore him every time I see him.”
Authorities say that shortly before he killed his colleagues at the VTA light rail yard about 6:30 a.m. he also set his house on fire. Inside was filled with gasoline and ammunition, prompting the FBI and ATF to help investigate in a massive law enforcement response.
Suh witnessed the fire, and security camera footage shows Cassidy leaving his home at 5:45 a.m. The video shows he was wearing a blue jumpsuit and got into a white pickup truck with a large, black duffel bag.
Suh said he and his wife were both scared of Cassidy.
Once, Suh said he backed up into Cassidy’s driveway. In response, Cassidy yelled at him to get off his property.
“‘You step on my driveway, get out!” Suh recalls Cassidy saying to him. “After that, I haven’t talked to him since then.”
Cassidy also had run-ins with past partners.
Civil court records show his marriage fell apart more than a decade ago before he started a relationship with another woman who alleged in a restraining order that he became “mentally, physically and sexually abusive.”
So, another criminal sociopath. What does this have to do with race, sex or political beliefs?
Just another messed up person that ignores all the laws and a bunch of unarmed victims.
All you have done is describe a mentally unstable alcoholic with anger issues… The fact that he set his home on fire as he was leaving indicates that he had no intention of returning to his home (or surviving the day for that matter) So I’m assuming you have some ulterior motive to connect this nut job with ALL gun owners… Nice try, guy was crazy and wanted to end it with a “BANG”… Mission accomplished.
OBTW: another woman who alleged in a restraining order that he became “mentally, physically and sexually abusive.” which means he should NOT have been in possession of a firearm…
Just another messed up person that ignores all the laws and a bunch of unarmed victims.
In another Gun Free Zone… That hardly EVER happens…
So he was already a legally prohibited person and the law didn’t stop him from acquiring/obtaining weapons. You don’t say. Surely that means more laws will solve the problem and dipshit49er is here to tell us about them.
And we have a winner! Congratulations, you are the first poster on TTAG to advocate Homo-erotic sexual acts today.
One would think it was a bit early for that sort of thing, but whatever floats your boat is fine as long as you are engaging with consenting adults.
Miner69er only care about mass shootings when the perp is white. If a black man did this, we wouldn’t hear a peep out of him.
Nope, I think anyone who commits a violent act like this should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, nationality or previous condition of servitude.
Yet you only bring up the white ones. Let me know when you bother to address most mass shooters being black.
Transit work must be really stressful, history repeats itself:
“Before he pulled the trigger, Lonnie Glasco had a chilling announcement. “Nobody’s going to leave,” he told co-workers in a lounge at a downtown San Diego bus-maintenance depot yesterday.
ADVERTISEMENT
Then Glasco, a veteran Metropolitan Transit System mechanic, went outside in the early morning darkness and gunned down two employees before police fatally shot him in the parking lot.
Glasco, 47, had suffered some losses in recent years – first his marriage, then the house near Alpine that he saw as an escape from urban aggravation – but police yesterday were still unraveling why he turned violent after working at the agency for 29 years, his entire adult life.“
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-2-killed-shooting-san-diego-transit-facility-2009mar24-story.html%3f_amp=true
Does anyone know if the “Gun Free Zone” signs were up-to-date? Possibly, they could use a larger font. As it was early, maybe use reflective letters so the sign is clearly viewed in low light conditions….
The news crawler on CNN is currently stating that Sam Cassidy had two semi-automatic handguns and eleven magazines with him, an unknown number of rounds were fired, every injured victim died, and that both handguns were “California legal”.
both handguns were “California legal”.
irrefutable proof that CA gun laws need to be MORE stringent… Guess they might look at why a guy with known issues of abusing women and under a restraining order had a gun any way, thought CA would have THAT covered in their “RED FLAG” laws or is this another oooooppppsss by law enforcement?…
CNN news anchors are also stating that Mr. Cassidy walked by many employees on the premises choosing only to target specific persons which appear to all be male with “ethnic-sounding” names (per victim list).
List of victims in the VTA shooting:
Paul Delacruz Megia, 42
Taptejdeep Singh, 42
Adrian Balleza, 29
Jose Dejesus Hernandez III, 35
Timothy Michael Romo, 49
Michael Joseph Rudometkin, 40
Abdolvahab Alaghmandan, 63
Lars Kepler Lane, 63
Alex Ward Fritch, 49
That seems like a normal San Jose ethnic mix.
Only about half of those seem “ethnic” frankly. Lane, Fritch, Rudometkin, all sound pretty European, and Romo is Latin but could be Mexican or Spanish/Castilian in origin. I suspect this was personal work grudges by a maladjusted alcoholic who was already/should have been a prohibited person due to former domestic violence.
No standard pistol is illegal. It may not be on the California roster, but it isn’t illegal.
**UPDATE**
CNN reporter Dan Simon just announced that Mr. Cassidy had “in addition to those three semi-automatic handguns… the shooter was equipped with 32 high-powered magazine clips in his possession”.
Wolf Blitzer then mentions the “truly alarming red flags” and how the killer had “more than 30 ammunition rounds…if you will… each one has maybe ten rounds… in those ammunition packages…”.
Andrew McCabe then emphasized the three things civilians should do when they find themselves in this sort of “terrible attack… First: Avoid- get away from the shooter if you can, leave the area, get out of the danger… if you can’t get out of danger: Deny- deny that shooter access to you… barricade yourself someplace they can’t get to you… and finally, if those things don’t work: Defend- you have got to defend yourself, and maybe fight for your life.”
And this, ladies and gentlemen, helps explain how our country has gotten itself into the predicament we current find our selves in… there are shameless equivocators like this in our national media, and the general population not only listens to them- they believe the artifice.
100 people shot, 19 of whom dies in Chicago last week. No outrage from the left or senile uncle Joe
Keep up the pressure, people! Contact Manchin, Sinema, and Tester to maintain the filibuster!
Trap everyone in a social, economic, and psychological pressure cooker for an entire year, then watch all the people who were already edge cases start going snap, crackle, pop. And don’t let the crisis you created go to waste.
We’re living through the biggest and potentially ugliest social experiment in human history.
“Samuel James Cassidy’s home in San Jose was a hoarder’s nest of clutter and weaponry that included 12 guns, nearly two dozen cans of gasoline and a dozen or more suspected Molotov cocktails, Santa Clara County sheriff’s officials said Friday.
The cache was in addition to the three 9 mm handguns that Cassidy, 57, brought Wednesday to the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority in San Jose, authorities said. He also had packed a duffle bag with 32 high-capacity magazines and fired 39 shots before killing himself as law enforcement closed in.
While witnesses have said Cassidy appeared to target certain people, the Sheriff’s Office said Friday that “it is clear that this was a planned event and the suspect was prepared to use his firearms to take as many lives as he possibly could.”
Cassidy also rigged his home to burn down before leaving for his workplace several miles away by putting bullets in a cooking pot on a stove that apparently detonated, igniting fire accelerants that were placed in the kitchen, sheriff’s officials said.”
Since EVERYBODY here has access to this same information (it’s called a newsfeed of which I have several) I must assume that you have a point to make, something other than “crazy WHITE guy gun nut with anger AND control issues breaks down and does something stupid? Surely you are not intimating that the guy is a racist or a WHITE supremacist? Him being WHITE and all… OBTW: here’s one you must have missed since you failed to mention it.. A 24-year-old suspect charged with murder and attempted murder in the Minneapolis mass shooting last weekend is expected in court Thursday, days after a gun battle outside a nightclub left seven wounded and two dead, including a bystander killed hours before his college graduation. Jawan C. Carroll (yeah he’s OTW), who prosecutors say is a member of the North Minneapolis street gang known as the “Tres Tres,” was charged with two counts of intentional second-degree murder for fatally shooting 21-year-old Charlie Johnson of Golden Valley and 24-year-old Christopher Jones of Brooklyn Park. He also faces seven counts of attempted second-degree murder.
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