California rail yard shooter stockpiled guns, ammo at his home: Sheriff

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Samuel Cassidy the shooter who killed 9 at California rail yard had 12 guns, 22,000 rounds of ammunition at house he set on fire. (Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office via AP)
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Updated 29 May 2021
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California rail yard shooter stockpiled guns, ammo at his home: Sheriff

  • Police say it is clear that Samuel James Cassidy planned "to take as many lives as he possibly could”

SAN FRANCISCO, US: The gunman who killed nine of his co-workers at a California rail yard had stockpiled weapons and 25,000 rounds of ammunition at his house before setting it on fire to coincide with the bloodshed at the workplace he seethed about for years, authorities said Friday.
Investigators found 12 guns, multiple cans of gasoline and suspected Molotov cocktails at Samuel James Cassidy’s house in San Jose, the Santa Clara County sheriff’s office said in a news release.
He also rigged an unusual time-delay method to ensure the house caught fire while he was out, putting “ammunition in a cooking pot on a stove” in his home, Deputy Russell Davis told The Associated Press. The liquid in the pot — investigators don’t yet know what was inside — reached a boiling point, igniting an accelerant and potentially the gunpowder in the bullets nearby.
The cache at the home the 57-year-old torched was on top of the three 9 mm handguns he brought Wednesday to the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority in San Jose, authorities said. He also had 32 high-capacity magazines and fired 39 shots.
The handguns found at the site were legally registered to Cassidy, Davis said, without elaborating on how he obtained them. Davis did not specify what type of guns officers found at his home, nor if they were legally owned.




Samuel Casssidy’s elderly father has reportedly descrived his son as bipolar. (Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office via AP)

Authorities described a home filled with clutter, with items piled up to the point where it appeared Cassidy might be a hoarder, and weapons stored near the home’s doorways and in other spots.
Sgt. Joe Piazza told reporters the variety of spots where Cassidy stashed the guns might be so he could “access them in a time of emergency,” such as if law enforcement came to his house.
Cassidy killed himself as sheriff’s deputies rushed into the rail yard complex in the heart of Silicon Valley, where he fatally shot nine men ranging in age from 29 to 63. He had worked there for more than 20 years.
What prompted the bloodshed remains under investigation, officials said.
While witnesses and Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith have said Cassidy appeared to target certain people, the sheriff’s office said Friday that “it is clear that this was a planned event and the suspect was prepared to use his firearms to take as many lives as he possibly could.”
Casssidy’s elderly father, James, told the Mercury News in San Jose that his son was bipolar. He said that was no excuse for the shooting and apologized to the victims’ families.
“I don’t think anything I could say could ease their grief. I’m really, really very sorry about that.”
Neighbors and former lovers described him as moody, unfriendly and prone to angry outbursts at times. But they expressed shock he would kill.
Cassidy’s ex-wife, Cecilia Nelms, said he had talked about killing people at work more than a decade ago, describing him as resentful and angry over what he perceived as unfair assignments.
US customs officers even caught him in 2016 with books about terrorism and fear as well as a memo book filled with notes about how much he hated the Valley Transportation Authority. But he was let go, and a resulting Department of Homeland Security memo on the encounter was not shared with local authorities.
It’s not clear why customs officers detained Cassidy on his return from the Philippines. The contents of the memo, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, were described to The Associated Press by a Biden administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The memo notes that Cassidy was asked whether he had issues with people at work, and he said no. It refers to a “minor criminal history,” citing a 1983 arrest in San Jose and charges of “misdemeanor obstruction/resisting a peace officer.”
San Jose police said they sought an FBI history on Cassidy and found no record of federal arrests or convictions.
Mayor Sam Liccardo, a former prosecutor, said that while he has not seen the Homeland Security memo, it’s not a crime to hate your job.
“The question is, how specific was that information?” he said. “Particularly, were there statements made suggesting a desire to commit violence against individuals?”
The president of the union that represents transit workers at the rail yard sought Friday to refute a report that Cassidy was scheduled to attend a workplace disciplinary hearing with a union representative Wednesday over racist comments.
John Courtney, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 265, said in a statement that he was at the facility “simply to check on working conditions and the continual safety of the dedicated men and women who work there.”
The attack comes amid an uptick in mass shootings following coronavirus shutdowns in much of the country last year. Since 2006, there have been at least 14 workplace massacres in the United States that killed at least four people and stemmed from employment grievances, according to a database on mass killings maintained by the AP, USA Today and Northeastern University.
Patrick Gorman, special agent in charge of the San Francisco field division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said he was not aware of any information about Cassidy, such as tips from the public, being shared with his division before the shooting. He said the entire San Jose field office responded to the crime scenes, along with other regional special agents.
Kirk Bertolet, 64, was just starting his shift when shots rang out, and he saw some of his co-workers take their last breaths.
Bertolet, a signal maintenance worker who worked in a separate unit from Cassidy, said he is convinced Cassidy targeted his victims because he didn’t hurt some people he encountered.
“He was pissed off at certain people. He was angry, and he took his vengeance out on very specific people. He shot people. He let others live,” he said.
Video footage showed Cassidy calmly walking from one building to another with a duffel bag filled with guns and ammunition to complete the slaughter, authorities said.
Bertolet said Cassidy worked regularly with the victims, but he always seemed to be an outsider.
“He was never in the group. He was never accepted by anybody there. He was always that guy that was never partaking in anything that the people were doing,” Bertolet said.
 


LA stars speak out against Trump’s increasingly ruthless migrant crackdown

Updated 9 sec ago
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LA stars speak out against Trump’s increasingly ruthless migrant crackdown

  • Celebrities hit disconnect between Trump’s claims about arresting dangerous criminals and raids that appear to be targeting day laborers and factory workers
  • “There are ruthless attacks that are creating fear and chaos in our communities in the name of law and order," says singer Doechii

LOS ANGELES: As President Donald Trump’s military-backed crackdown on immigrants continues in Los Angeles and across the US, celebrities are speaking out against the tactics and what they say are the intolerant views driving them.
Some pointed to the gulf between Trump’s apocalyptic descriptions of a city in flames and the reality of a vast and diverse metropolis where largely peaceful protests are limited to a small part of downtown.
Here’s what the glitterati had to say:

Many celebrities touched on the disconnect between Trump’s claims about arresting dangerous criminals and raids that appear to be targeting day laborers and factory workers.
“When we’re told that ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) exists to keep our country safe and remove violent criminals — great,” LA native and reality star Kim Kardashian wrote on social media.
“But when we witness innocent, hardworking people being ripped from their families in inhumane ways, we have to speak up.”
The billionaire behind Skims underwear added: “Growing up in LA, I’ve seen how deeply immigrants are woven into the fabric of this city. They are our neighbors, friends, classmates, coworkers and family.
“No matter where you fall politically, it’s clear that our communities thrive because of the contributions of immigrants.”
Singer Doechii echoed that sentiment in her acceptance speech for best female hip hop artist at the BET Awards on Sunday.
“There are ruthless attacks that are creating fear and chaos in our communities in the name of law and order. Trump is using military forces to stop a protest,” the “Anxiety” singer said. “We all deserve to live in hope and not fear”

Late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel gave a blistering 12-minute monologue from his studio in the heart of Hollywood, opening with footage of tourists enjoying the nearby attractions and a movie premiere.
“Not only is it not an apocalypse, they’re having a Disney/Pixar movie premiere right now for ‘Elio’, a movie about aliens — don’t tell Trump, he’ll send the Green Berets in, too,” the comedian said.
There is something wrong, he said, with innocent people “being abducted — which is the correct word to use — by agents in masks, hiding their identities, grabbing people off the streets.”

Grammy- and Oscar-winning musician and producer Finneas, famous for collaborations with sister Billie Eilish and for work on the “Barbie” movie soundtrack, reported being caught up in a heavy-handed police response at a protest.
“Tear-gassed almost immediately at the very peaceful protest downtown — they’re inciting this,” the LA native wrote on Instagram.
“Desperate Housewives” star Eva Longoria, called the raids “un-American.”
“It’s just so inhumane, hard to watch, it’s hard, it’s hard to witness from afar, I can’t imagine what it’s like to be in Los Angeles right now,” she wrote on Instagram.
Longoria added that the protests were a result of “the lack of due process for law-abiding, tax-paying immigrants who have been a part of our community for a very long time.”
 


Trump is receptive to contacts with North Korean leader, White House says

Updated 12 June 2025
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Trump is receptive to contacts with North Korean leader, White House says

  • Trump open to communication with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un
  • North Korea rejecting Trump letter, according to a report

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump would welcome communications with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after having had friendly relations with Kim during his first term, the White House said on Wednesday.
“The president remains receptive to correspondence with Kim Jong Un,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.
She was responding to a report by Seoul-based NK News, a website that monitors North Korea, that the North’s delegation at the United Nations in New York had repeatedly refused to accept a letter from Trump to Kim.
Trump and Kim held three summits during Trump’s 2017-2021 first term and exchanged a number of what Trump called “beautiful” letters. In June 2019, Trump briefly stepped into North Korea from the demilitarized zone with South Korea.
Little progress was made, however, at reining in North Korea’s nuclear program, and Trump acknowledged in March that Pyongyang is a “nuclear power.”
Since Trump’s first-term summitry with Kim ended, North Korea has shown no interest in returning to talks.
The attempts at rapprochement come after the election in South Korea of a new president, Lee Jae-myung, who has pledged to reopen dialogue with North Korea.
As a gesture of engagement on Wednesday Lee suspended South Korean loudspeakers blasting music and messages into the North at the Demilitarized Zone  along their shared border.
Analysts say, however, that engaging North Korea will likely be more difficult for both Lee and Trump than it was in the US president’s first term.
Since then North Korea has significantly expanded its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, and developed close ties with Russia through direct support for Moscow’s war in Ukraine, to which Pyongyang has provided both troops and weaponry.
Kim said in a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that his country will always stand with Moscow, state media reported on Thursday.


Russia hits Ukraine’s Kharkiv with deadly nighttime barrage of drones

Updated 12 June 2025
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Russia hits Ukraine’s Kharkiv with deadly nighttime barrage of drones

  • Zelensky: Attack shows Russia is not facing enough pressure
  • Two southern regions without electricity after attacks

KHARKIV, Ukraine: A concentrated, nine-minute-long Russian drone attack on Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv on Wednesday killed six people and injured 64, including nine children, Ukrainian officials said.
The attack followed Russia’s two biggest air assaults of the war on Ukraine this week, part of intensified bombardments that Moscow says are retaliatory measures for Kyiv’s recent attacks in Russia.
A new wave of drone attacks on four city districts was reported early on Thursday by Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov, including a drone that landed in a school courtyard and smashed windows. There were no other reports of casualties or damage.
Elsewhere, two southern Ukrainian regions, Mykolaiv and Kherson, were left without electricity on Wednesday after Russian forces attacked an energy facility, the governors said.
Kharkiv, in Ukraine’s northeast, withstood Russia’s full-scale advance in the early days of the war but has since been a regular target of drone, missile and guided aerial bomb assaults.
Prosecutors in Kharkiv region said on the Telegram messaging app that the death toll in Tuesday night’s incidents had risen to six as rescue teams pulled bodies from under the rubble. They said three people were still believed to be trapped.
The strikes by 17 drones on Kharkiv sparked fires in 15 units of a five-story apartment block and caused other damage in the city close to the Russian border, Mayor Terekhov said.
“There are direct hits on multi-story buildings, private homes, playgrounds, enterprises and public transport,” Terekhov said on the Telegram messaging app.
“Every new day now brings new despicable blows from Russia, and almost every blow is telling. Russia deserves increased pressure; with literally every blow it strikes against ordinary life, it proves that the pressure is not enough,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram.
A Reuters witness saw emergency rescuers helping to carry people out of damaged buildings and administering care, while firefighters battled blazes in the dark.
Nine of the injured, including a 2-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy, have been hospitalized, Oleh Sinehubov, the governor of the broader Kharkiv region, said on Telegram.
In total, the Ukrainian military said Russia had launched 85 drones overnight, 40 of which were shot down.
Blackouts
In the southern Kherson region, workers were trying to restore electricity supplies after Russian forces attacked what its governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, said was “an important energy facility.”
“It is currently impossible to predict the duration of the work. Residents of the region, I ask you to show understanding and prepare for a prolonged power outage,” he said on the Telegram messenger.
The governor of the neighboring Mykolaiv region, Vitaliy Kim, said his region was also experiencing emergency shutdowns but that power would soon be restored.
Kherson region directly borders a war zone and is under daily drone, missile and artillery attack. The Mykolaiv region faces mainly missile and drone attacks.
There was no immediate comment from Russia on the latest overnight attacks.
Both sides deny targeting civilians in the war that Russia launched on its smaller neighbor in February 2022. But thousands of civilians have died in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian.


Mali’s government adopts bill granting junta leader 5 more years in power

Updated 12 June 2025
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Mali’s government adopts bill granting junta leader 5 more years in power

  • The bill now awaits ratification by the National Transitional Council, the legislative body overseeing the transition

BAMAKO, Mali: Mali’s Council of Ministers on Wednesday adopted a controversial bill granting the head of the military junta an additional five years in power.
Gen. Assimi Goita has led the West African nation since orchestrating two coups in 2020 and 2021. The move follows the military regime’s dissolution of political parties in May.
According to the government’s cabinet statement, the bill will lead to the “revision of the Transition Charter, granting the Head of State a five-year renewable mandate starting in 2025.” It implements the recommendations of the national dialogue consultations organized by the military regime in April, which the political parties boycotted.
The bill now awaits ratification by the National Transitional Council, the legislative body overseeing the transition.
Earlier in May, Gen. Goita signed a decree dissolving political parties, a decision made against a backdrop of burgeoning opposition. It coincided with a surge in kidnappings of pro-democracy activists in the capital, Bamako, and just days after a demonstration by several hundred activists.
Mali, a landlocked nation in the semiarid region of Sahel, has been embroiled in political instability that swept across West and Central Africa over the last decade.
The nation has seen two military coups since 2020 as an insurgency by jihadi groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group worsened. The junta had promised a return to civilian rule by March 2024, but later postponed elections. No date has been set yet for the presidential election.


At least 49 people have died in flooding in South Africa with toll expected to rise, officials say

Updated 12 June 2025
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At least 49 people have died in flooding in South Africa with toll expected to rise, officials say

  • The death toll included six high school students who were washed away when their school bus was caught in floodwaters

JOHANNESBURG: At least 49 people were confirmed dead Wednesday as floods devastated one of South Africa’s poorest provinces, and officials said the toll was expected to rise as more bodies are recovered in the search for missing people.
The floods hit the largely rural Eastern Cape province in the southeast of the country early Tuesday after an especially strong weather front brought heavy rains, gale force winds and also snow in some parts.
“As we speak here, other bodies are being discovered,” Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane told reporters at a briefing, adding that it was one of the worst weather-related disasters his province had experienced. “I have never seen something like this,” he said.
The death toll included six high school students who were washed away when their school bus was caught in floodwaters on Tuesday near a river close to the town of Mthatha, which was especially hard hit and at the center of the worst flooding. Four other students were among the missing, Mabuyane said.
Authorities found the school bus earlier Wednesday, but it was empty. Three of the students were rescued on Tuesday when they were found clinging to trees and crying out for help, the provincial government said.
A driver and another adult who were on the bus with the schoolchildren were among the dead.
Search and rescue operations would continue for a third day on Thursday, authorities said, though they didn’t give details on how many people might still be missing. They said they were working with families to find out who was still unaccounted for.
Disaster response teams have been activated in Eastern Cape province and the neighboring KwaZulu-Natal province after the torrential rain and snow hit parts of southern and eastern South Africa over the weekend. Mabuyane said there had also been reports of mudslides.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the National Disaster Management Center was also working with local authorities in the Eastern Cape, the province that took the brunt of the extreme cold front that weather forecasters had warned was on its way last week. There were unusually large snowfalls in parts of Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State province in South Africa’s interior.
Ramaphosa offered his condolences to the affected families in the Eastern Cape in a statement from his office and described the situation as “devastation.”
Power outages have affected hundreds of thousands of homes in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
Eastern Cape provincial government officials said hundreds of families were left homeless and in temporary shelters in that province after their houses were washed away or broken apart, while at least 58 schools and 20 hospitals were damaged by the floods, which mostly affected Mthatha and the surrounding district.
Other houses were left submerged under water. Cars and debris that were carried away by the floods were left strewn in piles as the rain stopped and the water began to subside.
South Africa is vulnerable to strong weather fronts that blow in from the Indian and Southern Oceans. In 2022, more than 400 people died in flooding caused by prolonged heavy rains in the east coast city of Durban and surrounding areas.
Poor areas with informal housing are often the worst affected and where the majority of fatalities occur.