Sikh among eight killed in rail yard shooting in California

A SIKH man was among the eight people killed in the rail yard shooting in San Jose, California, according to media reports on Thursday (27).

Taptejdeep Singh, 36, born in India and raised in Union City, California, is survived by his wife, three-year-old son, one-year-old daughter and a grieving Sikh community in the San Francisco Bay Area, The Mercury News reported.

Co-workers at the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) hailed Singh as a hero, saying he left the safety of an office room, where some colleagues were hiding, to help others escape the line of fire.

Samuel Cassidy, 57, a maintenance worker of the VTA, San Jose, on Wednesday (26) gunned down eight of his co-workers and critically injured another in a one of the deadliest shootings in California state this year.

As police arrived at the scene, the gunman had died of a self-inflicted gunshot.

Singh was a light rail operator at the VTA for nine years. He worked at a separate building from where most of the other victims were found, giving the impression that Cassidy had selected his victims. Singh was fatally shot in the stairwell of a VTA building, the report said.

Singh's brother-in-law, PJ Bath, another light rail operator at the VTA, confirmed that the shooter and Singh were in different buildings initially, but said nothing on the victims being pre-decided by the killer.

"He just happened to be in the way, I guess. He was always helpful to everyone and caring," Bath said.

"We are in very deep grief, Singh's uncle Sakhwant Dhillon told the San Jose-based newspaper.

"He told people, 'be careful, hide.' He was running around the building to save others' lives. He was a good person. He helped everybody," Dhillon added.

Singh's brother Bagga Singh said he was told his brother had saved a woman when he "rushed down the stairway," where he was eventually shot.

It was an emotional scene at the Red Cross Center in the city where families of the victims gathered after the incident was reported.

Victims of the shooting were identified as Paul Delacruz Megia (42), Adrian Balleza (29), Jose Dejesus Hernandez (35), Timothy Michael Romo (49), Michael Joseph Rudometkin (40), Abdolvahab Alaghmandan (63), and Lars Kepler Lane (63).

The motive behind the shooting is not yet clear. Minutes after the incident, a fire was reported at Cassidy's home, about 13 km from the VTA office.

The fire was extinguished in an hour-long operation as the police said a separate investigation has been launched for it.