Taptejdeep Singh died attempting to rescue others from a gunman. Kirk Bertolet watched some of his colleagues take their last breaths.
And friends, loved ones and spouses were left to mourn after nine men died this week when a disgruntled coworker hauling a duffle bag filled with firearms and ammunition opened fire in a Northern California rail yard complicated, seemingly picking his targets and rescuing others.
Investigators were trying to ascertain Friday what could have put off Cassidy, who for decades seemingly held a grudge from the office he detested.
The minutes-long assault has been marked by both terror and heroism.
Singh, the father of a 3-year-old son along with also a 1-year-old daughter, was on an early change as a light rail operator once the shooting started.
He called a different transit worker to frighten himsaying he had to escape or conceal.
“From what I have heard, he spent the final minutes of his life ensuring others — at the construction and elsewhere — will have the ability to remain secure,” co-worker Sukhvir Singh, who’s not associated with Taptejdeep Singh, said in a statement.
Singh’s brother, Bagga Singh, stated he had been advised that his brother”place a woman in a control area to conceal,” the San Jose Mercury News reported. “He rescued her and hurried down the stairway.”
Singh’s brother-in-law, P.J. Bath, stated he had been told Singh was murdered after encountering the gunman at a stairwell.
Since he and his colleagues threw a desk before the door, Bertolet known as the management centre.
Then there was quiet.
Cautiously, Bertolet abandoned the barricaded office, hoping that he could provide first aid. He could not.
Bertolet, a sign maintenance employee who functioned in a different unit in Cassidy, said he’s convinced Cassidy targeted his victims since he did not hurt some people he encountered.
“He was pissed off in particular folks. He was mad, and he even took his vengeance out on quite particular men and women. He shot individuals. “It was really private.”
Glenn Hendricks, seat of the VTA’s board of directors, stated that he had no information regarding any anxieties between Cassidy and the colleagues he shot.
Camera footage revealed him peacefully walking from 1 building to another with his duffle bag to fill out the slaughter, police said.
“It seems to us now he explained to one of those individuals there:’I am not going to take you,”’ Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith stated. “And he shot other men and women. I imagine there was a sort of idea who wanted to take ”
Cassidy’s ex-wife stated he’d talked about murdering people at work over a decade past. Cecilia Nelms told The Associated Press he had been come home from work angry and resentful over what he perceived as unjust missions.
The shooter talked of hating his office when customs officers arrested him following a 2016 excursion to the Philippines, a Biden government official told The Associated Press.
The officer saw the memo and comprehensive its contents into the AP but wasn’t allowed to talk publicly about the continuing investigation.
It does not state why he had been stopped by leaders. He said he’d novels concerning”terrorism and fear and manifestos” but if he was asked if he had problems with people on the job, he stated no.
Records show he’d worked in the transit capacity because at least 2012. Bertolet stated Cassidy worked frequently with all the sufferers but he always appeared to be an outsider and possibly could not take the rough comedy of coworkers.
“He was not in the category. He wasn’t accepted by anyone there. He was always that man that was not partaking in anything the people were performing,” Bertolet explained.
“I understand a few of those men, they will keep joking with you and they will keep beating you about things. And if you are thin-skinned and you can not take it… I find that’s the most important source of what is happening,” Bertolet explained.
Sheriff’s officials said the three 9 millimeter handguns Cassidy caused the railroad yard seem to be legal. Police don’t know how he got them.
He had 32 high-capacity magazines, a few with 12 rounds. In California, it’s illegal to purchase magazines that hold over 10 rounds. But if Cassidy acquired them before Jan. 1, 2000, then he’d have been permitted to own them unless he had been prohibited from owning firearms.
The sheriff said police found explosives in the gunman’s house, where researchers believe he’d put a timer or slow-burn apparatus in order that a fire could happen at precisely the exact same time as the shooting. Flames were reported moments after the initial 911 calls came from the railroad facility.
