San Jose shooting: at least nine people dead at California rail yard, police say

A shooting that erupted in the early hours of Wednesday morning at a light rail maintenance yard in San Jose, California, has left at least nine people dead, including the gunman.

Authorities said that multiple people have also been injured and that the shooter was an employee of the Valley Transportation Authority, which operated the light rail facility in Silicon Valley. The motive is under investigation.

The shooting began around 6.30am local time in a facility that stores trains and serves as a transit control center, and authorities have said that the victims include employees of the facility.

“These folks were heroes during Covid-19. The buses never stopped running, VTA didn’t stop running,” said Cindy Chavez, a Santa Clara county supervisor. “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.”

VTA workers cross West Hedding Street near the scene of a mass shooting in San Jose.
VTA workers cross West Hedding Street near the scene of a mass shooting in San Jose. Photograph: Randy Vazquez/AP

Family members have streamed into a reunification center set up in a county building.

“They’re just sitting and holding hands and crying,” said Jeff Rosen, the district attorney of Santa Clara county, describing the scene. “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.

Raul Peralez, a local city council member, said he is waiting to hear from a close friend, who worked at the transit center.

“This hits close to home for me,” he said. “I have a close friend – I’m still waiting for his status. He’s been a friend since middle school. His wife is on her way down here now.”

“Not even knowing that information is devastating and I can understand how so many families are feeling right now,” he said.

San Jose police officers and sheriff deputies entered the facility while shots were still being fired, according to authorities. The Santa Clara county sheriff, Laurie Smith, added that at least one explosive device had been found, and that bomb-sniffing dogs were searching the building.

Police and investigators at the scene of a shooting at the San Jose Valley Transportation Authority light rail yard.
Police and investigators at the scene of a shooting at the San Jose Valley Transportation Authority light rail yard. Photograph: John G Mabanglo/EPA

The sheriff’s department confirmed in a press conference that it was investigating whether the shooting was related to one or more fires that broke out in San Jose around the same time.

The San Jose fire department responded to a large house fire at 6.36 am, and another fire in a commercial area at 6.26 am. Both were reported just moments before the shooting at the rail yard, which is a few minutes’ drive away.

Two patients were transported to Santa Clara Valley medical center, according to a spokesperson. One person was pronounced dead upon arrival, and the other was in critical condition.

Multiple news reports have identified the attacker as 57-year-old Sam Cassidy, citing law enforcement sources. Authorities said the shooter took his own life.

Outside the facility 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 co-workers” 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.

Authorities approach a home being investigated in connection to the shooting.
Authorities approach a home being investigated in connection to the shooting. Photograph: Noah Berger/AP

Other family members of employees at the facility took to social media to find news about their loved ones.

San Jose, the 10th-largest city in the US with more than a million people, is about 50 miles south of San Francisco in the heart of Silicon Valley.

Wednesday’s attack was the county’s second mass shooting in less than two years. A gunman killed three people before killing himself at a popular garlic festival in Gilroy in July 2019.

“This is a horrific day for our city and a tragic day for the VTA,” said the San Jose mayor, Sam Licardo. “Now is a moment for us to collect ourselves to mourn and help those who have lost loved ones. Then we will need to turn our attention to making sure this never happens again in our city.”

The California governor, Gavin Newsom, said in a tweet that his office was “in close contact with local law enforcement and monitoring this situation closely”.

Special agents from the FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were responding to the crime scene, officials said.

source: theguardian.com