Official: 8 killed in San Jose shooting, suspect also dead
Posted May 26, 2021 1:22 pm.
Last Updated May 26, 2021 2:12 pm.
SAN JOSE, Calif. – A Santa Clara County sheriff’s spokesman says eight people were killed in the San Jose railyard shooting. Deputy Russell Davis says the suspect also died Wednesday in the shooting at the Valley Transportation Authority light railyard.
No identities have been released but Davis said the shooter was an employee of the authority.
Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith said it was “undetermined” how the suspect died.
The shooting took place around 6:30 a.m. at a light rail facility next door to the sheriff’s department and across a freeway from the airport.
The facility is a transit control center that stores trains and has a maintenance yard.
“A horrible tragedy has happened today, and our thoughts and love go out to the VTA family,” VTA Chairman Glenn Hendricks told a news conference.
VTA trains were already out on morning runs when the shooting occurred. Light rail service was to be suspended at noon and replaced with bus bridges, Hendricks said.
Outside the scene, Michael Hawkins told The Mercury News that he was waiting for his mother, Rochelle Hawkins, who had called him from a co-worker’s phone to assure him that she was safe.
When the shooting started, “she got down with the rest of her coworkers” and dropped her cellphone, Michael Hawkins told the newspaper. Rochelle Hawkins did not see the shooter, and she was not sure how close she had been to the attacker, her son said.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a tweet that his office was “in close contact with local law enforcement and monitoring this situation closely.”
Special agents from the FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were responding to the crime scene, officials said.
