Claudia Cowan reports from the scene in San Jose, Calif., with the latest on the investigation into the deadly shooting.
The suspect in the mass shooting at a Northern California rail yard that left nine people dead Wednesday – including the shooter – was captured on camera earlier that morning leaving for work.
The suspected shooter, 57-year-old Samuel Cassidy, can be seen in the surveillance footage wearing safety clothing, a hat, and a mask as he leaves his house around 5:40 a.m. The footage shows him loading a large duffel bag into his white Ford F-150 on the passenger side. He then walks around the truck and gets into the driver s seat before driving away.
Bay Briefing: What we know about the San Jose mass shooting
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VTA employees are escorted to the county building by police after an apparent mass shooting incident occurred early Wednesday, May 26, 2021 at the Valley Transportation Authority maintenance facility in San Jose, Calif.Josie Lepe / Special to the Chronicle
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The gunshots broke out just after 6:30 a.m. Wednesday and continued as the first of dozens of law enforcement officers rushed into the light-rail service yard near downtown San Jose on a rescue mission for survivors.
A SHOOTING at at a railway yard in San Jose, California, caused multiple deaths and injuries yesterday.
Santa Clara County sheriff’s spokesman Deputy Russell Davis said that the suspect was among the dead, adding that he could not specify the number of casualties or describe how the suspect died.
The shooting took place around 6.30am at a light rail facility next door to the sheriff’s department and across a main road from the airport.
Mr Davis said he did not know the type of weapon used or whether the shooting had happened indoors or outdoors.
He said that the victims included employees of the Valley Transportation Authority.
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SAN JOSE, Calif. A gunman who killed nine people at a California rail yard fired 39 shots and appeared to target some of the victims, a sheriff told The Associated Press on Thursday.
The shooter arrived at the light rail facility for the Valley Transportation Authority in San Jose around 6 a.m. Wednesday with a duffel bag carrying two semi-automatic handguns and 11 high-capacity magazines, Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith said in an interview.
“It appears to us at this point that he said to one of the people there: ‘I’m not going to shoot you,’” Smith said. “And then he shot other people. So I imagine there was some kind of thought on who he wanted to shoot.”
Alex Ward Fritch, 49.
Sam Cassidy. He worked for the Valley Transportation Authority since 2012, starting out as a mechanic before being tasked with maintaining substations. He took his own life when he was confronted by officers.
Investigators are still trying to determine why he killed his coworkers and if he specifically targeted any of the victims.
He was armed with two semi-automatic handguns and had 11 loaded magazines.
Authorities said that Cassidy rigged a device that was rigged to burn down his house, which was about eight miles from the scene of the massacre. What we re operating under now, and I m not sure this isn t going to change, is that he set some kind of device to go off at a certain time probably to coincide with his shooting, Santa Clara County Sheriff