8 People Killed In Mass Shooting, California Governor: What Is Wrong?

Illustration. (Pixabay/ValynPi14)

JAKARTA - The heartbreaking mass shooting incident is happening again in the United States. Eight public transport workers were killed and a number more injured, as their co-worker opened fire Wednesday, May 26, local time.

The perpetrator in this incident at the San Jose, San Francisco, train maintenance complex, decided to end his life. The shooting, which left California State Governor Gavin Newsom baffled.

Speaking to Reuters Thursday, May 27, Santa Clara County Sheriff's Deputy Russell Davis said a bomb disposal team was deployed to the site after an explosive device was found. Smith said he was not involved in the shootout with the assailants.

Sheriff Laurie Smith told reporters the gunfire still occurred when his first deputy arrived on the scene. The perpetrator also killed himself when he learned the police were coming.

Smith praised the swift action by sheriff's deputies, who rushed to the scene from their own headquarters next to the rail yard, preventing what may have been a much larger fatality.

On the same occasion, California State Governor Gavin Newsom strongly criticized and upset with the repeated violence of gun violence among American civilians.

"There are similarities in this and numbness is, in my opinion, something we all feel", Newsom said.

"This begs the question, What is going on in the United States? What's wrong with us and when are we going to overcome this?", he asked.

Authorities did not name or age of the gunman. However, the San Jose Mercury News and other media outlets identified the perpetrator as Samuel Cassidy, 57, a Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) worker, a rail and bus service provider in San Jose who joined in 2012.

"A terrible tragedy has occurred today and our thoughts and love go out to the VTA family", Glenn Hendricks, chairman of the VTA board, told reporters.

The shooting occurred in a section of the railyard where workers were carrying out maintenance on the vehicle and was not at the facility's operations and control center. Train services on the commuter line were suspended after the shooting", Glenn continued.

Separately, the White House said President Joe Biden had been briefed on the incident, while a number of relevant staff and officials were monitoring and coordinating with officials in California.

"Clearly, as the president has said, we are suffering from an epidemic of gun violence in this country, both from mass shootings and in lives taken in gun violence every day that do not make national headlines", white house spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said.

For the record, there were 200 mass shooting incidents in the United States in the first 132 days of the year, according to a report by the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research group that defines incidents like those in which four or more people, in addition to the attacker, were shot, regardless of the number killed.