Police, FBI seek motive in California shooting rampage
Police and federal investigators sought on Thursday to determine why a Northern California transit employee opened fire on his co-workers, killing nine people in the latest mass shooting to haunt the United States.
Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith said the accused gunman shot himself as police closed in on a San Jose light rail yard.
Police did not release the gunman's name. The San Jose Mercury News identified him as 57-year-old Samuel Cassidy, a maintenance worker at the yard.
Cassidy had worked for the transit authority since at least 2012.
The gunman and the nine victims shot dead were all employees of the transit agency situated near the city's airport. The victims were found in two buildings on the site.
Cell phone video from Wednesday shows firefighters at the suspect's home. A neighbor said he saw smoke billowing from the house. The fire occurred at about the same time as the shooting was first reported.
A police bomb squad searched the rail yard and adjacent buildings after an explosive device was found.
Police declined to speculate on a motive for the shooting rampage.
California Governor Gavin Newsom said at a Wednesday afternoon news conference that the massacre was a symptom of a larger American problem.
"What the hell is going on in the United States of America? What the hell is wrong with us and when are we going to come to grips with this? When are we going to put down our arms, literally and figuratively? Our politics, stale rhetoric, finger-pointing, all the hand-wringing, consternation that produces nothing except more fury and frustration, more scenes like this repeated over, and over, and over again."
A White House spokeswoman told reporters that the shooting was further evidence that the United States was in the grip of an "epidemic of gun violence."
