Multiple Fatalities In Shooting At VTA Facility In San Jose

At least eight people were killed after a shooting at a Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) facility in San Jose early Wednesday.

The alleged shooter, a male VTA employee, is also dead, according to the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office.

Details on how the suspect died were not immediately released.

The victims included VTA employees, authorities said.

Officials said explosive devices were possibly located inside the building and bomb squad teams were working to “render the area safe.”

Authorities received several 911 calls regarding shots that were fired at the VTA light rail yard at around 6:34 a.m.

Multiple agencies responded to the scene for an active shooter investigation, Russell Davis, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office, said at a news conference.

VTA employees were evacuated from the facility that Davis described as a control center and a hub that stores multiple trains as well as a maintenance yard.

Authorities did not provide details on the circumstances of the shooting, saying it was an “ongoing investigation.”

A residential house that was on fire before the shooting began was said to belong to the suspect, multiple outlets reported.

“It appears that the suspect’s house is on fire but that there was nobody inside,” San Jose Mayor, Sam Liccardo, who also serves on the VTA board, told the New York Times. “There’s a strange connection here between arson and the shooting.”

Hundreds of rounds of ammunition were reported to have been found in the burned home, Liccardo said.

The shooting occurred at the transportation agency’s light rail yard, which is a maintenance yard where vehicles are dispatched, the VTA board’s chair, Glenn Hendricks, told reporters Wednesday.

“This is horrific day for our city and it’s a tragic day for the VTA family,” Liccardo said. “Our heart pains for the families and coworkers because we know that so many are feeling deeply this loss of their loved ones and their friends.”

The mayor said the VTA employees were “essential workers” who risked their lives to operate the light rail and buses to help people get through the pandemic.

He also said he would later discuss the city’s plans “to ensure we never see a horrific tragedy like this again in San Jose.”

Rep. Ro Khanna, who represents the district, called the shooting a “horrific tragedy” and said the victims were “our frontline heroes, who kept the South Bay moving through the worst of the pandemic.”

“While much still remains to be confirmed at this time, one thing is abundantly clear: the gun violence epidemic will continue to rage unless we take concrete action to protect our country. It was our community today, but it will be someone else’s tomorrow,” Khanna said in a statement. He said that he would continue to push for common sense gun control legislation in Washington.

This year, dozens of people across the US have been killed in a spate of high-profile mass shootings. In March, eight people, six of whom were Asian, were fatally shot at Atlanta-area spas and 10 people were killed in a Colorado grocery store. Last month, a former employee shot and killed eight people at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis; a former NFL player killed six people, including himself, at the home of his doctor; three members of a family in Brooklyn and four members of a family in a Dallas suburb were killed by relatives who then killed themselves; and one died and five were injured at a custom cabinet business in Bryan, Texas.

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