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Authorities said a suspect was shot and killed eight people in a mass shooting in a California railroad yard serving Silicon Valley on Wednesday.
The Santa Clara County Sheriff’s spokesperson Russell Davis said the suspect was an employee of the Valley Transportation Agency (VTA), which provides public services in Santa Clara County, the largest county in the entire Bay Area. Car, light rail and other transit services.
Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith (Laurie Smith) said the gunman’s death method has not yet been determined.
The shooting occurred at around 6:30 a.m. local time in the San Jose light rail facility next door to the Sheriff’s Department and crossed a highway at the airport. The facility is a transportation control center that stores trains and has maintenance stations.
Davis said the attack caused “severe injuries.” He did not know the type of weapon used, nor did he know whether the gunfire occurred indoors or outdoors. He said that the victims included VTA employees. The authorities did not disclose the names of any victims.
Santa Clara County Superintendent Cindy Chavez said: “During COVID-19, these people are heroes. The buses have never stopped running, and the VTA has not stopped running.” “They just keep working, and now we really Calling on them to become heroes again to survive such a terrible and terrible tragedy.”
Police cars and orange crime scene tapes blocked the area where the shooting occurred, and reporters were isolated. The railway freight yard is located in the administrative area of ??the city, close to the sheriff’s office and the city and county offices.
Davis said that after receiving information about possible explosive devices in the building, the bomb squad was searching the railway complex.
When the shooting happened, the VTA train had already started in the morning. The chairman of the agency, Glenn Hendricks, said at a press conference that the light rail service will be suspended at noon and will be replaced by buses.
He said that it is difficult for everyone to “try to wrap their heads and understand what is going on.”
According to spokesperson Joy Alexiou, two patients were taken to the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. One person was declared dead when he arrived, and the other was in a critical state.
Outside the scene, Michael Hawkins told a local newspaper that he was waiting for his mother, who called him from a colleague’s phone to ensure her safety.
Hawkins told “Mercury News” that when the shooting started, “she came down with other colleagues” and dropped her mobile phone. He said his mother told him that she had never seen the shooter and was not sure how close she was to the attacker.
The attack was the second shooting in the county in less than two years.A gunman killed three people and then committed suicide At a popular garlic festival in Gilroy in July 2019.
At the press conference, San Jose Mayor Sam Ricardo sighed for “a day of horror in our city.” Governor Gavin Newsom (Gavin Newsom) said in a tweet that his office “is maintaining close contact with local law enforcement agencies and closely monitoring the situation.”
Officials said that agents of the FBI and the Federal Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Administration were responding to the crime scene.
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