San Jose shooting victim Taptejdeep Singh warned colleagues as rampage was happening, brother says
As Wednesday’s San Jose workplace shooting was underway, Taptejdeep Singh was calling colleagues and shepherding others, warning them to hide or stay away, his brother says, citing witnesses.
Singh, 36, and eight other Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) workers were fatally shot by a colleague in two buildings in the Northern California city Wednesday morning, before the gunman killed himself, officials have said.
“(Singh) was calling colleagues,” his brother Karman Gill told CNN on Friday morning. “As I’m told by his coworkers, he was telling them to go hide and died fighting.”
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The voice of Paul Delacruz Megia’s father grew lighter as he shared what a joy it had been to work alongside his son at the Valley Transportation Authority in San Jose.
Megia joined the agency in the early 2000s so he could pay to attend college, his father said. He was laid off after a few months but decided to return several years later to begin a career there.
“We really enjoyed seeing each other because he would be on the light rail and I would be on the bus,” his father recalled, describing how they would wave at each other. “It was a happy time.”
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As a gunman opened fire Wednesday at a Northern California light rail yard, Taptejdeep Singh rushed out of an office where his co-workers were hiding. He wanted to help them escape, they told his family.
Singh, 36, frantically called others to warn them. He ran through the building, trying to secure it. He helped a woman hide in a control room, The Mercury News reported. Then he was gunned down in a stairway.
Singh s brother, Karman Singh, said in a statement Thursday that his family was comforted hearing how he spent his final moments trying to keep others safe.
Gunman a highly disgruntled employee who reportedly wrote he hated VTA By Jill Tucker, Lauren Hepler and Sarah Ravani
The gunman appears to have left no note, no explanation for why he walked into a San Jose rail yard Wednesday morning and shot nine coworkers, but investigators have found a common theme in his past: He hated his workplace.
“Based on recent developments in the investigation, we can say that the suspect has been a highly disgruntled VTA employee for many years,” said the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office.
It’s still unclear whether Samuel James Cassidy targeted specific individuals. Unlike many other mass shootings, there were no others injured. Everyone who was shot died.
A day after the Bay Area s deadliest mass shooting ever, local leaders gathered Thursday in San Jose to remember the nine victims lost.
However, at his home where the fire was reported, investigators found the gasoline cans, Molotov cocktails, firearms and ammunition, and sheriff s officials said they believe the fire was started to destroy the home.
The sheriff s office has described Cassidy as a highly disgruntled VTA employee for many years but has not identified a specific motive for the mass shooting.
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The nine people killed by Cassidy have been identified as Paul Delacruz Megia, 42; Taptejdeep Singh, 36; Adrian Balleza, 29; Jose Dejesus Hernandez III, 35; Timothy Michael Romo, 49; Michael Joseph Rudometkin, 40; Abdolvahab Alaghmandan, 63; Lars Kepler Lane, 63; and Alex Ward Fritch, 49.