A 36-year-old Sikh man was among eight people killed in the latest mass shooting incident in the US, authorities in San Jose, California, said on Thursday.
Taptejdeep Singh, who was a light rail operator at the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) for nine years, was the first victim to be publicly identified by his family,
The Mercury News reported.
Singh, born in India and raised in Union City, California, leaves his wife, three-year-old son, one-year-old daughter, and a grieving Sikh community in the San Francisco Bay Area, which described him as a “helpful and caring” man.
Co-workers at the light rail yard of the VTA hailed Singh as a hero, saying he left the safety of an office room, where some colleagues were hiding, to help others escape the line of fire.
Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
27 May 2021
Joe Biden pushed for ‘more’ to be done Wednesday after California’s stringent gun controls failed to prevent the San Jose attack.
Biden began his push before all the details of the shooting were known, tweeting:
We are still awaiting many of the details of this latest mass shooting in San Jose, but there are some things we know for sure. There are at least eight families who will never be whole again. Every life taken by a bullet pierces the soul of our nation.
We must do more.
NBC News reported Biden also released a statement, in which he said, in part:
May 27, 2021
Yesterday, Sam Cassidy, an employee of the Valley Transportation Authority opened fire Wednesday at a California rail yard serving Silicon Valley, killing eight people. According to the authorities, the gunman was also dead. Santa Clara County Sheriff, Laurie Smith, stated that it was “undetermined” how the shooter had died. The shooting took place around 6:30 a.m. at a light rail facility, a transit control center that stores trains and has a maintenance yard, in San Jose. The facility is right next door to the sheriff’s department and across a freeway from the airport.
None of the victims’ names have been released at this time, but Sheriff’s spokesman Deputy Russell Davis said the attack resulted in “multiple major injuries.” The spokesman also stated that they did not know the type of weapon used, or whether the gunfire happened indoors or outdoors, and the victims included VTA employees.
California Governor Gavin Newsom spoke at the scene of Wednesday’s mass shooting in San Jose, Calif., to condemn the deaths of 8 victims at a workplace murder-suicide. “Pick a state. And here we are, in the United States of America, where we’re experiencing something that is not experienced anywhere else in the world. There’s a sameness to this.”