SAN JOSE, Calif. — The Valley Transportation Authority maintenance worker who fatally shot nine co-workers and then himself at a light rail yard Wednesday morning was a “highly disgruntled” employee who came to the facility armed with 32 illegal high-capacity magazines, the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday.
The gunman in the San Francisco Bay Area’s deadliest mass shooting, identified as Samuel James Cassidy, 57, of San Jose, opened fire upon co-workers in two buildings at about 6:34 a.m. Wednesday, and took his own life as law enforcement officers closed in, authorities said. A fire erupted at his San Jose home around the same time.
The gunman fired 39 times, apparently selecting his targets, Sheriff’s Deputy Russell Davis said, telling at least one person at the rail yard, “I’m not going to shoot you” during his rampage.
The Sheriff’s Office wrote in a statement Thursday afternoon that its investigators are still determining Cassidy’s motive for the shooting, but have so far confirmed that he “has been a highly disgruntled VTA employee for many years, which may have contributed to why he targeted VTA employees.”
A VTA spokeswoman had declined to comment Thursday morning when asked whether Cassidy had a disciplinary history, or if any employees had reported feeling threatened by him.
According to a Wall Street Journal report Thursday, a Department of Homeland Security memorandum indicated that Customs and Border Protection agents detained Cassidy in 2016 as he was returning to the U.S. from the Philippines and found he harbored a hatred for his workplace.
The memo, which the Journal said was distributed at DHS after the shooting Wednesday, said Cassidy was found to possess “books about terrorism and fear and manifestos ... as well as a black memo book filled with lots of notes about how he hates the VTA,” when Customs and Border Protection detained him. “When asked if he had problems with anybody at work, he stated, ‘no.'”
It was unclear whether the information had been shared at the time with VTA and local authorities. DHS officials were not immediately available to comment.
Davis added that the VTA had held active-shooter training off site, but not at the rail yard where Wednesday’s shooting occurred.
The Sheriff’s Office previously said the gunman had 11 pistol magazines that held 12 rounds each, making them illegal high-capacity magazines in California, which mandates 10-round limits under state law that is being challenged in court. On Thursday afternoon, they updated that total to 32 high-capacity magazines.
Cecilia Nelms, Cassidy’s former wife, said Thursday that while he worked at the VTA, he several times talked about hurting or killing colleagues who had angered him.
“He’d say, ‘I’m going to beat him up,’ or sometimes he’d say, ‘I’m going to kill the son-of-a-gun,'” said Nelms, 64, of Santa Cruz. Nelms said she’d become accustomed to Cassidy’s enraged ranting, including about colleagues, and she didn’t take his comments seriously.
“Sometimes people say things like that when they’re mad,” she said. “He never mentioned names.”
Cassidy didn’t talk about guns, and when he spoke of beating or killing co-workers, he didn’t mention shooting them, she said. She never knew him to own firearms, she added.
Nelms earlier told the Bay Area News Group that Cassidy’s anger toward colleagues often appeared to arise from his belief that he was given harder jobs. She said Cassidy would attend boxing matches in the area, sometimes as a spectator and a few times as a boxer. Once, he came home with a cut and swollen lip, she said. She suggested he stop boxing, and he agreed and didn’t box again during their 10-year marriage, which ended in 2005, she said.
The three guns Davis said Cassidy was armed with is one more than Sheriff Laurie Smith had indicated Thursday morning in television interviews, in which she offered additional details about the rampage.
“We know that the suspect entered the facility and began shooting, and there were deceased in two separate buildings,” Smith said in an interview on NBC’s "Today" show. “We believe he went from building to building.”
Smith said the massacre was over within minutes as law enforcement officers from her office — one block from the rail yard — and San Jose Police responded and closed in on the gunman.
“It was a short period of time before our deputies were able to confront the suspect,” Smith said, adding that while it was unclear whether the gunman reloaded his pistols, “I know to be able to reload a semi-automatic handgun is very quick.”
“I think he was very deliberate, very fast,” Smith said. “He knew where employees would be. We were there just within a few minutes. But I really credit the officers from the San Jose Police Department and the Sheriff’s Office deputies who confronted the suspect very quickly. And when they confronted the suspect, he took his own life.”
Smith did not provide further detail about the weapons in the interview, but added that there were no explosives found at the Valley Transportation Authority rail yard. During the investigation, Sheriff personnel using bomb-sniffing dogs located several possible suspicious devices on the VTA property. The Sheriff’s Office Bomb Squad responded to render the scene safe.
Smith said early Thursday on "Today" that “our dogs alerted on probably what is his locker and in it was materials for bombs, detonator cords, the precursors to an explosive. And I think they also found at least rounds at the house, too.”
Davis said later that the bomb technicians swept the rail yard facility after a bomb-sniffing dog detected possible bomb-making materials in Cassidy’s locker, a suspicion exacerbated by the presence of wires that they thought could be detonator materials.
Ultimately, they found no explosives at the facility, and upon closer examination the items in Cassidy’s locker were deemed to not be dangerous, Davis said.
It remains unclear what has been recovered at Cassidy’s home aside from what sources said were weapons and ammunition. Davis said a search warrant was set to be served at the home Thursday, continuing a lengthy police presence that included San Jose police, the sheriff’s office, the FBI and the ATF.
A neighbor’s security video showed Cassidy leaving his home at 5:39 a.m. dressed for work and loading a large black duffel bag into his white Ford pickup truck.
Smith said the fire at Cassidy’s house was reported at 6:37 a.m., about an hour later.
“So he must have had some way to set it, or have someone else do it,” Smith said, clarifying that there was no evidence of an accomplice.
“What we’re operating under now — but I’m not sure that this isn’t going to change — is that he set some kind of a device to go off at a certain time, probably to coincide with the shooting,” Smith said.
Cassidy was known to be volatile and harbor resentment about his work assignments, according to his former wife. But what might have triggered Wednesday’s rampage, and whether the victims were targeted or randomly slain, remains undetermined.
“Obviously we’re looking into that,” Smith said. “But what in the world could possibly prompt someone to take this kind of action? We don’t know at this point.”
A vigil for the nine victims was planned for Thursday evening at the San Jose City Hall plaza.
VTA officials at a news conference Thursday morning provided more information about the nine light rail yard workers who were killed in the attack. They have been identified as Paul Delacruz Megia, 42; Tapdejdeep Singh, 36; Adrian Belleza, 29; Jose Dejesus Hernandez III, 35; Timothy Michel Romo, 49; Michael Joseph Rudometkin, 40; Abdolvahab Alaghmandan, 63; Lars Kepler Lane, 63; and Alex Ward Fritch, 49.
Three of the victims — Hernandez, Alaghmandan and Fritch — were substation maintainers, the same job held by the man who killed them. Romo, Rudometkin and Lane, were overhead line workers; Singh and Balleza operated VTA’s light rail vehicles and Megia, was an assistant superintendent.
Many had long tenures at the transit agency that describes its workforce as the VTA Family — three had been with the authority for at least 20 years, and a fourth had 19 years of service.
“I’m angry, I’m sad, I’m lost for words,” said Naunihal Singh, the superintendent of the Guadalupe Yard. “At the same time, I’m trying to find the reasons why.”
Singh shared an office with Megia, and supervised both Balleza, who he called “a gem of a person,” and Taptejdeep Singh, described as a helpful and positive co-worker.
Survivors have passed along reports among VTA workers that Taptejdeep Singh and Balleza were killed while trying to get their fellow employees to safety Wednesday morning.
“It shows the character of these guys,” Naunihal Singh said, “how they tried to save others while going through that chaotic situation.”
Evelyn Tran, VTA’s interim general manager, described feeling “immensely helpless” Wednesday as she watched families learn their loved ones had been killed.
“We get up every morning safe in the belief that when we go to work, that we would come home to our family and our loved ones. That did not happen for Abdolvahab, Adrian, Alex, Jose, Lars, Michael, Paul, Taptejdeep and Timothy.”
The Sheriff’s Office asks anyone with information regarding the shooting to call the Sheriff’s Office at (408) 808-4500.
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