SAN JOSE ‚ 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 Offi
Shooting occurred on Wednesday when VTA employee walked into facility and killed nine co-workers
Alyssa Rubino and Christina Gonzalez light a candle for their cousin Michael Joseph Rudometkin during a vigil in San Jose, California, on 27 May. Photograph: Brittany Hosea-Small/Reuters
Alyssa Rubino and Christina Gonzalez light a candle for their cousin Michael Joseph Rudometkin during a vigil in San Jose, California, on 27 May. Photograph: Brittany Hosea-Small/Reuters
Fri 28 May 2021 09.43 EDT
Last modified on Fri 28 May 2021 11.33 EDT
In downtown San Jose, in the crowded plaza of city hall, hundreds of mourning families, local residents and Bay Area light rail employees laid flowers in front of nine framed pictures.
The minutes-long attack was marked by both horror and heroism. Singh, the father of a 3-year-old son and a 1-year-old daughter, was on an early shift as a light rail operator when the shooting began.
Nic Coury/AP
Family members of shooting victim Timothy Romo embrace during a vigil at City Hall in San Jose, Californnia. He called another transit employee to warn him, saying he needed to get out or hide. “From what I’ve heard, he spent the last moments of his life making sure that others – in the building and elsewhere – would be able to stay safe,” co-worker Sukhvir Singh, who is not related to Taptejdeep Singh, said in a statement.
An emergency responder stows a bomb squad robot following a shooting at a Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) rail yard on Wednesday, May 26, 2021, in San Jose, Calif. A Santa Clara County sheriff s spokesman said the shooting left at least eight people, including the gunman, dead. AP Photo/Noah Berger
An ex-girlfriend of the San Jose shooter said he was violent and experienced mood swings. Several times during the relationship he became intoxicated, enraged and forced himself on me sexually, she wrote.
The accusations came during a March 2009 court fight over a restraining order.
The man who shot and killed nine people at a rail yard in San Jose on Wednesday had faced previous accusations of domestic violence, according to court records reviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle.
San Jose rail yard killer evaded California’s tough gun laws
By John WoolfolkTribune News Service
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SAN JOSE, Calif. The smoke had barely cleared after Wednesday’s deadly rampage by a disgruntled maintenance worker at a San Jose light rail yard when it became the focus of the nation’s fevered debate over gun laws.
The San Francisco Bay Area’s deadliest mass shooting prompted President Joe Biden to urge Congress to “help end this epidemic of gun violence in America.” Gov. Gavin Newsom visited the scene and recalled another mass shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in 2019. Advocates for stricter gun laws argued that this latest in a series of mass shootings nationally is proof of the need for more federal laws.