Witness saw Calif. co-workers take 'last breath'

(27 May 2021) A gunman who killed nine people at a California rail yard appeared to target some of the victims, a sheriff told The Associated Press on Thursday, while a Biden administration official said he spoke of hating his workplace when customs officers detained him after a 2016 trip to the Philippines. 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 filled with semi-automatic handguns and high-capacity magazines, Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith said in an interview. While there are no cameras inside the rail yard's two buildings, Smith said footage captured him moving from one location to the next. It took deputies six minutes from the first 911 calls to find the gunman on the third floor of one of the buildings, Smith said. He killed himself as deputies closed in on the facility serving the county of more than 1 million people in the heart of Silicon Valley. More than 100 people were there at the time, and authorities found five victims in one building and two in another, Smith said. Authorities do not yet know whether the gunman had worked regularly with any of the victims. Investigators were serving search warrants for his home and cellphone, seeking to determine what prompted the bloodshed, the sheriff said. The attacker was identified as 57-year-old Samuel Cassidy, according to two law enforcement officials who were not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity. In an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday, a worker at the VTA transit facility described the scene during the shooting as it unfolded. "At that time I went around to see if I could render first aid, if I could do anything for anybody, if I could help anybody," Kirk Bertolet said. "I watched some of my co-workers breath their last breath, and they were all gone," he said. After being detained in 2016, Cassidy was found to have a memo book with notes on how he hated the Valley Transportation Authority, according to a Biden administration official who described a Department of Homeland Security memo laying out Cassidy's statements. The official saw the memo and detailed its contents to The Associated Press but was not authorized to speak publicly about an ongoing investigation. The Wall Street Journal first reported the memo. The memo doesn't say why he was stopped by customs officers. It said he had books about “terrorism and fear and manifestos" but when he was asked whether he had issues with people at work, he said no. It notes that Cassidy had a “minor criminal history” and cites a 1983 arrest in San Jose and charges of “misdemeanor obstruction/resisting a peace officer.” Cassidy's ex-wife said he had talked about killing people at work more than a decade ago. She said he used to come home from work resentful and angry over what he perceived as unfair assignments. The three handguns he had appear to be legal, sheriff’s officials said. Authorities do not yet know how he obtained them. He also had 11 high-capacity magazines, each with 12 rounds. In California, it is illegal to buy magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. However, if Cassidy had obtained them before Jan. 1, 2000, he would be allowed to have them unless he was otherwise prohibited from possessing firearms. The sheriff said authorities found explosives at the gunman’s home, where investigators believe he had set a timer or slow-burn device so that a fire would occur at the same time as the shooting. Flames were reported minutes after the first 911 calls came in from the rail facility. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...