Gunman kills 9 co-workers in rail yard shooting
POLICE and federal investigators sought yesterday to determine why a Northern California transit employee opened fire on his co-workers, killing nine people, in the latest mass shooting to haunt the US.
The gunman shot himself as police closed in on him, minutes after gunfire erupted at about 6:30am at a light rail yard in the heart of Silicon Valley, according to Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith.
The San Jose Mercury News and other news media identified the gunman as Samuel Cassidy, 57, a maintenance worker at the yard.
Firefighters responded to a fire at a home where the suspect lived at about the same time that the shooting was reported. A police bomb squad searched the rail yard and adjacent buildings after an explosive device was found.
Police declined to speculate on a motive for the shooting rampage, saying that their work at the scene could take several days, assisted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms.
California governor Gavin Newsom said at a Wednesday afternoon news conference that the massacre was a symptom of a larger American problem.
“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?”
A White House spokesperson told reporters that the shooting was further evidence that the US was in the grip of an “epidemic of gun violence”.
The gunman and the nine victims shot dead were all employees of the transit agency situated near the city’s airport. The victims were found in two buildings on the site.
The County of Santa Clara medical examiner-coroner’s office identified the victims late on Wednesday. They were all men aged between 29 and 63.
Cassidy had worked for the transit authority since at least 2012, when he was listed as an “electro-mechanic,” and was promoted to “substation maintainer” in 2015.
The suspect and another individual filed domestic violence restraining orders against one another in 2009, three years after Cassidy and his wife divorced, court records showed. | Reuters