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.
 


EU leaders agree to prolong Russia sanctions: officials

Updated 10 sec ago
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EU leaders agree to prolong Russia sanctions: officials

  • EU’s sweeping sanctions includes freezing of more than 200 billion euros ($234 billion) in Russian central bank assets

BRUSSELS: The EU’s 27 leaders on Thursday agreed to extend sanctions on Russia for another six months, resolving fears that Kremlin-friendly Hungary would let the measures lapse, officials said.
The decision at a summit in Brussels means that the EU’s sweeping sanctions over the war in Ukraine, including the freezing of more than 200 billion euros ($234 billion) in Russian central bank assets, will remain in force until at least early 2026.
It comes after officials said they were preparing contingency plans to keep the bloc’s economic punishment on Moscow in place should Hungarian leader Viktor Orban refuse to budge.
EU counterparts had feared a refusal by Budapest to renew the measures could blow a massive hole in the leverage the bloc holds over Russia as the United States presses peace efforts.
Orban took the decision to the wire the last time the sanctions — which need to be extended every six months — came up for renewal in January.
But while the EU made sure its existing measures will remain in place, it failed to get clearance on a new package of sanctions due to a blockage by Hungary’s ally Slovakia.
Slovakian leader Roberto Fico refused at the summit to greenlight the new round of sanctions due to a separate dispute with Brussels over plans to cut off imports of Russian gas by the end of 2027.
Slovakia remains dependent on Russian gas imports and earns money from transit fees for supplies piped across its territory.
Fico held talks with EU chief Ursula von der Leyen earlier on Thursday but failed to get the concessions he wants and announced he would hold up approval of the sanctions package.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky urged EU leaders in a video address to adopt the strong package “targeting Russia’s oil trade, shadow tanker fleet, banks, and supply chains that bring equipment or parts for making weapons.”
Officials say, however, that a push to lower a price cap on Russian oil exports has been shelved after Washington failed to back the push as part of a broader G7 initiative.
 


Ukraine, Russia exchange another group of POWs

Updated 58 min 15 sec ago
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Ukraine, Russia exchange another group of POWs

CHERNIGIV REGION, Ukraine: Ukraine and Russia exchanged a new group of captured soldiers on Thursday, the latest in a series of prisoner swaps agreed at peace talks in Istanbul earlier this month.
Neither side said how many prisoners were released in the latest exchange.
The two countries pledged to swap at least 1,000 soldiers each during their direct meeting in Istanbul on June 2 but no follow-up talks have been scheduled.
The return of prisoners of war and the repatriation of war dead have been among the few areas of cooperation between the warring sides since Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022.
“Today, warriors of the Armed Forces, the National Guard, and the State Border Guard Service are returning home,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media.
He shared images of Ukrainian soldiers draped in blue-and-yellow national flags, smiling and tearfully embracing.
AFP reporters in Ukraine’s northern Chernigiv region saw relatives awaiting the prisoner release.
Some family members waved posters of missing or captured soldiers in the hope someone would recognize their loved ones and bring them news.
Svitlana Nosal learned her husband Viktor had been freed.
“It’s such a joy, I don’t know how to describe it, how to put it into words,” she said, laughing and crying in the late afternoon sun.
The majority of those released on Thursday were held captive for more than three years, according to Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.
Many of them were taken prisoner in Mariupol, a Ukrainian port city that fell to Russian forces in 2022 following a nearly three-month siege, it said.
Russia said its soldiers had been transferred to Belarus and were receiving “psychological and medical care.”
“Another group of Russian servicemen has been returned from territory controlled by the Kyiv regime,” the defense ministry said in a statement.
It posted a video showing freed Russian soldiers draped in their national flag, chanting “Russia, Russia, Russia!“


UN climate chief warns ‘lot more to do’ before COP30

Updated 27 June 2025
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UN climate chief warns ‘lot more to do’ before COP30

BONN: UN climate chief Simon Stiell urged countries on Thursday to accelerate negotiations ahead of the COP30 in Brazil as there was a lot left to be done.
Speaking after two weeks of technical talks in Bonn, Stiell closed the annual climate diplomacy event saying: “We need to go further, faster, and fairer.”
Bonn is home to the UN Climate Change Secretariat, which coordinates international climate policy and hosts preparatory talks each year ahead of climate summits.
“I’m not going to sugar coat... we have a lot more to do before we meet again in Belem,” he said.
COP30 is due to be held on November 10-21 in the Amazonian city which is the capital of Para state.
At last year’s UN COP29 summit in Azerbaijan, rich nations agreed to increase climate finance to $300 billion a year by 2035, an amount decried as woefully inadequate.
Azerbaijan and Brazil, which is hosting this year’s COP30 conference, have launched an initiative to reduce the shortfall, with the expectation of “significant” contributions from international lenders.
This year’s COP comes as average global temperatures in the past two years have exceeded the 1.5 degrees Celsius benchmark set under the Paris climate accord a decade ago.
“There is so much more work to do to keep 1.5 alive, as science demands. We must find a way to get to the hard decisions sooner,” Stiell said.
Under the Paris Agreement, wealthy developed countries — those most responsible for global warming to date — are obliged to pay climate finance to poorer nations.
Other countries, most notably China, make voluntary contributions.


White House wants deep cut in US funding for war crimes investigations, sources say

Updated 26 June 2025
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White House wants deep cut in US funding for war crimes investigations, sources say

  • The programs also include work in Iraq, Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Gambia
  • The expectation that Rubio would argue for many of the programs to be continued is slim

WASHINGTON/THE HAGUE: The White House on Wednesday recommended terminating US funding for nearly two dozen programs that conduct war crimes and accountability work globally, including in Myanmar, Syria and on alleged Russian atrocities in Ukraine, according to two US sources familiar with the matter and internal government documents reviewed by Reuters.

The recommendation from the Office of Management and Budget, which has not been previously reported, is not the final decision to end the programs since it gives the State Department the option to appeal.

But it sets up a potential back-and-forth between the OMB and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his aides, who will reply to OMB with their suggestions on which programs deserve to continue. The programs also include work in Iraq, Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Gambia.

The State Department and OMB did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The expectation that Rubio would argue for many of the programs to be continued is slim, according to two US officials. However, the top US diplomat could make a case to keep crucial programs, such as aiding potential war crimes prosecutions in Ukraine, according to one source familiar with the matter.

Several of the programs earmarked for termination operate war crimes accountability projects in Ukraine, three sources familiar with the matter said, including Global Rights Compliance, which is helping to collect evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity across Ukraine, such as sexual violence and torture.

Another is the Legal Action Network, a legal aid group which supports local efforts to bring cases against Russian suspects of war crimes in Ukraine, the sources said.

Requests seeking comment from the groups were not immediately answered.

State Department bureaus that would like to preserve any war crimes and accountability programs should send their justifications by close of business day on July 11, said an internal State Department email seen by Reuters.

CHANGING PRIORITIES
The administration of President Donald Trump has frozen and then cut back billions of dollars of foreign aid since taking office on January 20 to ensure American-taxpayer money funds programs that are aligned with his “America First” policies.

The unprecedented cutbacks have effectively shut down its premier aid arm US Agency for International Development, jeopardized the delivery of life-saving food and medical aid and thrown global humanitarian relief operations into chaos.

The OMB recommendation is yet another sign that the administration is increasingly de-prioritizing advocacy for human rights and rule of law globally, an objective that previous US administrations have pursued.

While US foreign aid freezes had already started hampering an international effort to hold Russia responsible for alleged war crimes in Ukraine, Wednesday’s recommendations raise the risk of US completely abandoning those efforts.

Among the programs that are recommended for termination is a $18 million State Department grant for Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office that is implemented by Georgetown University’s International Criminal Justice Initiative, two sources said.

While the programs do not directly impact Ukraine’s frontline efforts to fend off Russia’s invasion, supporters say they represent the best chance of extensively documenting reported battlefield atrocities in Europe’s biggest conflict since World War Two, now grinding toward a fourth year.

Ukraine has opened more than 140,000 war crime cases since Moscow’s February 2022 invasion, which has killed tens of thousands, ravaged vast swathes of the country and left behind mental and physical scars from occupation. Russia consistently denies war crimes have been committed by its forces in the conflict.


PATH TO APPEAL
Other programs include one that does accountability work on Myanmar army’s atrocities against Rohingya minorities as well as on the persecution of Christians and other minorities by Syria’s ousted former president Bashar Assad, two sources said.

While the OMB recommendations could face State Department push-back, the criteria to appeal are set very strictly.

In an internal State Department email, the administration cautioned that any effort to preserve programs that were recommended to be terminated should be thoroughly argued and directly aligned with Washington’s priorities.

“Bureaus must clearly and succinctly identify direct alignment to administration priorities,” the email, reviewed by Reuters said.


US says giving $30 million to back controversial Gaza relief effort

Updated 26 June 2025
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US says giving $30 million to back controversial Gaza relief effort

  • The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is backed by armed US contractors with the Israeli troops on the perimeter
  • Nearly 550 Palestinians have been killed near the fountantion’s aid centers while seeking scarce supplies

WASHINGTON: The United States said Thursday it has approved its first direct funding for a controversial Israeli-supported relief effort in the Gaza Strip and urged other countries to follow suit.
"We have approved funding for $30 million to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. And we call on other countries to also support the GHF, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, and its critical work," State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott told reporters.
Israel starting in March blocked deliveries of food and other crucial supplies into Gaza for more than two months, leading to warnings of famine in the territory widely flattened by Israeli bombing since the massive October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, backed by armed US contractors with the Israeli troops on the perimeter, began operations at the end of May that have been marred by chaotic scenes, deaths and neutrality concerns.
The Gaza health ministry says that since late May, nearly 550 people have been killed near aid centers while seeking scarce supplies.
The GHF has denied that deadly incidents have occurred in the immediate vicinity of its aid points.
Major aid groups and the United Nations have refused to work with the officially private group, saying it violates basic humanitarian principles by coordinating delivery with troops.
Asked about the criticism of the operation, Pigott said that the 46 million meals the group says it has so far distributed are "absolutely incredible" and "should be applauded."
"From day one, we said we are open to creative solutions that securely provide aid to those in Gaza and protects Israel," Pigott said.
The financial support to the GHF is part of President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio's "pursuit of peace in the region," he said.