Instructions for the motive for the San Jose shooting emerge Gun Violence News

Dead gunman nine people He appeared against some victims in the California railroad yard where he worked, a sheriff told the Associated Press on Thursday, and a Biden administration official said the shooter spoke of hating his workplace when he was arrested by customs officials after a 2016 trip to the Philippines. .

Samuel Cassidy, 57 years old arrived At the San Jose Valley Transportation Authority’s light rail facility at around 6:30 a.m. Wednesday (1:30 p.m. GMT) Wednesday with a bag full of semi-automatic pistols and high-capacity magazines, Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith said.

“It seems to us at this point that he said to the people who were there,‘ I’m not going to shoot you, ’” Smith said. “And then he shot other people. So I imagine they thought about who he wanted to shoot. “

Although there are no cameras in the two buildings in the railroad yard, Smith said the film caught him moving from place to place. It took six minutes from the first 911 calls for deputies to find Cassidy on the third floor of the building, Smith said.

In the heart of Silicon Valley, a deputy who shut down facilities that supplied more than a million people in the county killed himself. There were more than 100 people there at the time, and authorities found five victims in one building and two others, Smith said.

Authorities are still unaware that Cassidy has been working with a victim on a regular basis. Investigators were giving search warrants to his home and cell phone, trying to determine what prompted the bloodshed, the sheriff said.

“I’m not sure we’ll really find the real reason, but we’ll complete it as much as we can from the witnesses,” he said.

After his arrest in 2016, Cassidy found that he had a notebook with notes on how he hated the Valley’s transportation authority, according to a Biden administration official who received Cassiden’s statements. The official saw the release and specified its contents to The Associated Press, but was not allowed to speak publicly about an ongoing investigation.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the release.

The note did not say why customs officials stopped him. He said he had books on “terrorism and fear and manifestos,” but when asked if he had any problems with people at work, he said no. Cassidy stated he had a “minor criminal record” and was arrested in San Jose in 1983 and charged with “criminal obstruction / confrontation with an official peace officer.”

Cassidy’s ex-wife said she talked about killing people at work more than a decade ago. According to documents, at least since 2012 he has worked in the transport authority.

“I never believed him, and it never happened. So far, ”Cecilia Nelms said on Wednesday in a tearful cry to the AP.

He came home from work angry and angry because he perceived them as unfair tasks.

“It could be in things,” he said. The two had been married for about 10 years until they filed for a 2005 divorce, and Nelms said she had been without Cassidy for about 13 years.

Victims of the massacre

Several long-time employees were killed, many of whom worked together.

“Anything that happened yesterday shows that the nature of these guys tried to save others while they were living in this chaotic situation,” said Naunihal Singh, a superintendent of light rail.

The victims were Alex Ward Fritch, 49; Paul Delacruz Megia, 42; Taptejdeep Singh, 36; Adrian Balleza, 29; Jose Dejesus Hernandez, 35; Timothy Michael Romo, 49; Michael Joseph Rudometkin, 40; Abdolvahab Alaghmandan, 63, and Lars Kepler Lane, 63.

For his friends, Lars Lane was an ordinary guy who was quiet, spending time with his family and doing projects outside of his job at the Valley Transportation Authority.

Her husband, father, grandfather and brother of five siblings said she was a childhood friend of her childhood friend Brad Fisher in a phone interview with Reuters news agency. “He was an ordinary guy who did extraordinary things,” Fisher said. An avid cyclist and a “cuckoo of all trades,” Lane often loved doing home projects like building a pool in the backyard.

Fisher, 66, said Lane was proud of his work at the VTA, and once Fisher showed up in the rail yard, even for a minute of fun letting the train run.

Indian-born Taptejdeep Singh, 36, was always looking for help from people – a feature that cost him dearly on Wednesday, a friend of the Kashmir Singh Shahi family said in a telephone interview.

“He told me at the time that he was with Paul, another victim,” said colleague Sukhvir Singh, who has nothing to do with Taptejdeep Singh. “From what I’ve heard, he’s made sure that the last moments of his life will be able to be safe for others – in the building and elsewhere.”

Paul Delacruz Megia, 42, left three children, KRON television reported. Megia was remembered by friends on social media for her good humor. In a Facebook post, Monica Lennon wrote to her eye that her childhood friend Megia had a “special glow” and told her “silly jokes”.

“Thank you for making my life so much clearer, for your contagious smile,” Lennon wrote.

Phil Guzman, who said he worked with some of the victims, wrote on Facebook that Megia was “one of the best supervisors I’ve ever worked with.”

“I was never too busy to listen to stupid, silly or crazy thoughts I had. Really an honest and kind person, ”Guzman said of Megia.

Guzman also knew Adrian Balleza, a 29-year-old victim of Wednesday’s shooting. Balleza posted many photos of his wife and young son on his Facebook page.

Michael Rudometkin, 40, was a motorcycle enthusiast, according to his Facebook profile. In December 2018 she posted on Facebook that she joined the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority as an online employee, her mother Rose Rudometkin wrote, “Congratulations son!”

Raul Peralez, a San Jose councilor and a lifelong friend of Rudometkin’s, said: “Unfortunately, I personally know how these nine families felt last night, this morning, with disbelief, with the hope that they will be your loved one. I will come home and that will never happen again. knowing “.