Transit worker kills eight co-workers in California
The gunman was an employee of the Valley Transportation Authority and has been identified as Sam Cassidy.
PRETORIA, May 27 (ANA) – A transit employee shot dead eight co-workers before shooting himself at a commuter rail yard in San Jose, California, CNN reported on Thursday.
The gunman was an employee of the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) and he has been identified as Sam Cassidy, Deputy Russell Davis confirmed to CNN.
The victims ranged in age from 29 to 63, CNN reported, citing the medical examiner.
Mayor Sam Liccardo told the US broadcaster that the gunman was no stranger to the people he shot.
“These are, and were, essential workers. These VTA employees helped us get through this horrific pandemic. They were showing up every day to operate light rail and buses to ensure people could still go about their lives in the middle of the challenge of the pandemic. And they were taking risks with their own lives in doing so,’’ ABC News quoted Liccardo as saying.
According to ABC News, Cassidy had worked for the transit authority since at least 2012, when he was listed as an electro-mechanic who was promoted to substation maintainer in 2015.
“A horrible tragedy has happened today and our thoughts and love go out to the VTA family,” Glenn Hendricks, chairperson of the VTA board, said at a news conference.
Cassidy’s ex-wife, Cecilia Nelms, told the Associated Press that Cassidy had a bad temper and would tell her that he wanted to kill people at work, “but I never believed him, and it never happened, until now”.
KRON4 said it spoke to Cassidy’s former girlfriend’s attorney, Robert Cummings, who said the two met on Match in 2009 and two months later he proposed. The girlfriend declined as she felt that was too fast.
Cummings said the girlfriend told him about Cassidy’s mood swings and described him as bipolar, KRON4 reported.
According to the broadcaster, Doug Suh, who lives across the street from Cassidy, told local news outlets that Cassidy was lonely and strange and that he never saw anyone visit.
“I’d say hello, and he’d just look at me without saying anything.”
Suh said there was a time Cassidy yelled at him to stay away as he was backing up his car. “After that, I never talked to him again.”
Al Jazeera wrote that over four weeks in March and April, the US saw three such shootings that involved mass casualties. On March 16, eight were killed, including six women of Asian descent, at Atlanta-area spas. Less than a week later, 10 died at a supermarket shooting in Colorado, and a few weeks after that, eight were killed at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis.
– African News Agency (ANA); Editing by Yaron Blecher
