A 36-year-old Indian-origin Sikh man was among eight people killed in the horrific rail yard shooting in San Jose in the US state of California, according to media reports on Thursday. Taptejdeep Singh 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, has left behind his wife, three-year-old son, one-year-old daughter, and a grieving Sikh community in the San Fransisco Bay Area, which described him as a “helpful and caring” man. Co-workers at the Valley Transportation Authority (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.
Samuel Cassidy, 57, a maintenance worker of the VTA, San Jose, on Wednesday gunned down eight of his co-workers and critically injured another in a one of the deadliest shootings in California state this year. As police arrived at the scene, the killer died of a self-inflicted gunshot.
The gunman who opened fire on coworkers bypassed certain people and so appeared to select those he shot, a witness said. “He … was targeting certain people. He walked by other people,” Kirk Bertolet, a worker at the Santa Clara Valley VTA in San Jose, told CNN affiliate KGO on Wednesday night. “He let other people live as he gunned down other people,” Bertolet said.
The gunman, armed with two semi-automatic handguns, shot coworkers in two buildings around the time of a morning shift change before taking his own life in front of responding law enforcement officers, authorities said. At least eight of the nine killed were VTA employees, and investigators are trying to determine the motive, officials said.
Singh was a light rail operator at the VTA for nine years. He worked at a separate building from where most of the other victims were found, giving the impression that Cassidy had selected his victims. Singh was fatally shot in the stairwell of a VTA building, the report said. Singh’s brother-in-law, P.J. Bath, another light rail operator at the VTA, confirmed that the shooter and Singh were in different buildings initially but said nothing on the victims being pre-decided by the killer.
“He just happened to be in the way, I guess. He was always helpful to everyone and caring,” Bath said “We are in very deep grief, Singh’s uncle Sakhwant Dhillon told the San Jose-based newspaper. “He told people, ‘be careful, hide.’ He was running around the building to save others’ lives. He was a good person. He helped everybody,” Dhillon said.
Singh’s brother Bagga Singh said he was told that his brother had saved a lady when he “rushed down the stairway, where he was eventually shot. Singh may be considered a hero, but “he should have saved his life, too. We lost a good person,” Bagga said.
Emotional scenes were seen at the Red Cross Center in the city where families of the victims gathered after the incident was reported. Singh’s family, including his father, hugged and cried.
The other victims of the shooting were identified as Paul Delacruz Megia (42), Adrian Balleza (29), Jose Dejesus Hernandez (35), Timothy Michael Romo (49), Michael Joseph Rudometkin (40), Abdolvahab Alaghmandan (63), and Lars Kepler Lane (63). The eighth person who was killed was identified as Alex Ward Fritch (49). Minutes after the incident, a fire was reported at Cassidy’s home, about 13 kilometres from the VTA office. The fire was extinguished in an hour-long operation. Police said a separate investigation is going on in the fire. President Joe Biden reacted to the latest shooting incident by urging Congress to “take immediate action” on gun legislation.
“Enough,” he said on Wednesday. “Once again, I urge Congress to take immediate action and heed the call of the American people, including the vast majority of gun owners, to help end this epidemic of gun violence in America.” The shooting is the latest example of America’s gun violence scourge. It is the 232nd mass shooting this year in the country, according to a tally by the Gun Violence Archive.
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