San Jose mass killer was facing disciplinary hearing over racist remarks on day of shooting, report says
The mass shooter responsible for the deaths at the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority in San Jose, California, was reportedly a “disgruntled employee” who was facing a disciplinary hearing the day of the shooting due to racist remarks he allegedly made.
Samuel Cassidy, 57, was called “highly disgruntled” by officers of the Customs and Border Protection agency that questioned him.
One officer reported in a memo to the Department of Homeland Security that he found Mr Cassidy had “books about terrorism and fear and manifestos ... as well as a black memo book filled with lots of notes about how he hates the VTA,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
The material was found in 2016, and Mr Cassidy was questioned about whether or not he hated his co-workers, to which he said “no”.
Despite this, the man was still able to obtain explosives and firearms, even bragging about his ability to do so to his co-workers.
He was scheduled to face a hearing on the day of the shooting, but came to work with a duffel bag carrying two pistols and 11 magazines of ammunition.
Mr Cassidy killed nine of his colleagues, most of whom were people of colour. Surveillance video showed that before he killed himself he was searching for other individuals at his work site.
Witnesses said he had targeted certain people at his workplace.
Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith said Mr Cassidy told at least one person “I'm not going to shoot you”, before going on to shoot others.
“So I imagine there was some kind of thought on who he wanted to shoot,” she concluded.
One witness to the shooting who also worked at the facility, Kirk Bertolet, told the Associated Press that Mr Cassidy did not shoot people he encountered on his way to the second building, where he shot more people.
“Sam made sure he killed all who he wanted. He made sure they were dead,” Mr Bertolet said. “I watched some of my coworkers breathe their last breaths, and they were all gone. Seven of them were just gone.”
He called the shooter an “outsider”, who was “never in the group”.
“He was never accepted by anybody. You look back and you go, ‘yeah, it fits’,” he said.
The man's ex-wife, Cecilia Yolanda Nelms, told NBC News that he had previously talked about killing his co-workers, but she never took the threats seriously. The couple divorced in 2004.
Mr Cassidy planned out his attack and even booby-trapped his home to catch fire in the aftermath of his shooting.
Before leaving his home the day of the shooting, he set a time on a slow-burn device to set his house on fire, according to Ms Smith.
Investigators found bomb-making materials in Mr Cassidy's locker, as well as three 9mm handguns as well as 32 high-capacity magazines loaded with ammunition.
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