San Jose:
A California transit employee killed eight co-workers and wounded an additional ahead of taking his personal life on Wednesday, the most up-to-date in a spate of deadly U.S. mass shootings, prompting the state’s governor to ask: “What the hell is wrong with us?”
Authorities did not quickly present quite a few information or a probable motive for the shooting, which unfolded about 6:30 a.m. Pacific Time (1330 GMT) at a light-rail yard for commuter trains of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), in the heart of Silicon Valley in the San Francisco Bay Area.
A bomb squad was browsing the yard and adjacent buildings right after at least one explosive device was discovered, Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Deputy Russell Davis stated at a news conference.
Sheriff Laurie Smith told reporters that gunfire was nevertheless going on when her 1st deputies arrived on the scene, and that the assailant took his personal life, apparently when he became conscious that police have been closing in on him.
Officers never ever exchanged gunfire with the suspect, Davis stated. Still, Smith credited swift action by sheriff’s deputies, who rushed to the scene from their personal headquarters next door to the rail yard, stopping what could possibly have been a a great deal higher loss of life.
Governor Gavin Newsom, appearing with Smith and other folks in San Jose, voiced exasperation at the frequency and regularity of gun violence in America.
“There is a sameness to this and that numbness, I think, is something that we are all feeling,” Newsom stated. “It begs the damn question, What the hell is going on in the United States of America? What the hell is wrong with us and when are we going to come to grips with this?”
The gunman, the eight victims shot dead, and a survivor who was hospitalized in essential situation have been all workers of the transit agency situated close to the city’s airport, officials stated. The victims have been discovered in two buildings on the web-site.
The County of Santa Clara health-related examiner-coroner’s workplace identified the victims late on Wednesday. They appeared to all be males and ranged in age in between 29 and 63. Their names are: Paul Delacruz Megia, Taptejdeep Singh, Adrian Balleza, Jose Dejesus Hernandez III, Timothy Michael Romo, Michael Joseph Rudometkin, Abdolvahab Alaghmandan and Lars Kepler Lane.
Authorities did not release the gunman’s name or age. The San Jose Mercury News and other media outlets identified him as Samuel Cassidy, 57, a upkeep worker at the yard.
Cassidy had worked for the transit authority because at least 2012, when he was listed as an “electro-mechanic,” and was promoted to “substation maintainer” in 2015, according to records posted by the nonprofit site Transportation California.
Last year, he earned a salary of $102,000, plus added benefits and $20,000 in overtime, the records showed.
The suspect and an additional person filed domestic violence restraining orders against one an additional in 2009, 3 years right after Cassidy divorced his spouse, according to on the internet court records.
‘Essential Workers’
“A horrible tragedy has happened today and our thoughts and love go out to the VTA family,” Glenn Hendricks, chairman of the VTA board, told reporters.
The shooting took spot in a section of the rail yard exactly where workers carry out upkeep on automobiles, and was not in the facility’s operations and handle center, he stated. Rail service on the commuter line was suspended right after the shooting.
San Jose, a city of about 1 million residents, lies at the heart of Silicon Valley, a international technologies hub and home to some of America’s largest higher-tech corporations.
“These are, and were, essential workers,” San Jose’s mayor, Sam Liccardo, stated of the victims.
He confirmed in tv news interviews that authorities had also responded to a fire at the home of the suspect that erupted at about the very same time as the shooting.
Multiple fire division, police and bomb squad automobiles have been nevertheless parked outdoors the suspect’s residence, along a cul-de-sac in southeastern San Jose, hours right after the shooting.
An explosives-detecting robot sat in the street close to the home whilst two bomb squad technicians entered the ranch-style residence. Arson investigators along with agents of the FBI and U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have been also present.
President Joe Biden was briefed on the shooting, and his employees continued to monitor the predicament whilst maintaining in close make contact with with regional officials to present any help necessary, the White House stated.
“What’s clear, as the president has said, is that we are suffering from an epidemic of gun violence in this country, both from mass shootings and in the lives that are being taken in daily gun violence that doesn’t make national headlines,” White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.
Mass gun violence, commonplace in a nation with one of the highest prices of firearm ownership in the world, has escalated significantly following a year-extended lull as the United States emerged from the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic this spring.
Wednesday’s incident was the most up-to-date of at least nine deadly U.S. mass shootings that have made national headlines in the previous 3 months, beginning with a string of attacks at Atlanta-region day spas in mid-March that claimed eight lives, and a rampage days later that killed 10 at a Colorado supermarket.
Last month, a former employee of an Indianapolis FedEx center shot eight workers to death ahead of taking his personal life. Earlier this month a man fatally shot his girlfriend and 5 other men and women ahead of taking his personal life at a birthday party in Colorado.
The United States saw at least 200 mass shootings in the 1st 132 days of this year, according to a report by the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit investigation group that defines such incidents as these in which 4 or more men and women, other than the assailant, are shot, regardless of the quantity killed.
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