SAN JOSE — Light-rail service in the greater South Bay is on hold indefinitely in the wake of the mass shooting at a Valley Transportation Authority rail yard that ended in the slayings of nine transit employees by a VTA maintenance worker last week.
The transit agency announced in a Sunday tweet that “VTA light rail service is suspended until further notice,” and that the current substitute of bus bridges will continue serving the three main lines that connect the South Bay from Mountain View to Los Gatos and East and South San Jose. Monday, Evelynn Tran, interim VTA general manager and general counsel, elaborated on the decision in a blog post on the VTA website.
“For the immediate future, the light rail system is shut down. At this point, it is impossible to estimate when service can be restored,” Tran wrote. “There are many factors involved in restoring service, most importantly the human factor.”
Our people are our first priority. A message from Interim VTA General Manager Evelynn Tran https://t.co/Y7UYqqleWu #VTAfamily pic.twitter.com/Ycex1j8UIh
— VTA (@VTA) May 31, 2021
Tran said the shooting tragically compounded an already trying time for the agency, which had been marred in April by a cyber ransomware attack that disrupted several key services, chief among them its paratransit service.
“VTA has endured a lot this year from the impact of COVID, a massive cyber attack and now this,” she wrote. “The compassion, sensitivity and strength shown by our people is inspiring. I cannot adequately express how deeply impressed and proud I am of all our VTA people. The courage they’ve shown during this tragedy is incredible.”
Tran added: “Now, our primary focus is the well-being and health of our people. I have directed staff to make our people our first priority. We will marshal all the resources we can to assist our people through this. It will mean providing less service to the community than we would wish. But healing our organization must be our first priority.”
Light-rail service was initially suspended a few hours after the Wednesday morning shootings at the Guadalupe Yard on West Younger Avenue, as the transit system was getting up and running for the day.
Samuel James Cassidy, 57, described as a disgruntled VTA substation maintenance employee who was shown to harbor violent feelings toward his employer and whose family suggested he suffered from untreated mental illness — including bipolar disorder — had three handguns and more than 300 rounds of ammunition when he began methodically shooting people and making his way through the Guadalupe facility.
By the end, it would go down as the deadliest mass shooting in Bay Area history. The victims were Abdolvahab Alaghmandan, 63; Adrian Balleza, 29; Alex Ward Fritch, 49; Jose Dejesus Hernandez III, 35; Lars Kepler Lane, 63; Paul Delacruz Megia, 42; Timothy Michael Romo, 49; Michael Joseph Rudometkin, 40; and Taptej Singh, 36.
Cassidy fatally shot himself as a Santa Clara County sheriff’s deputy — whose headquarters was next door — and San Jose police officers closed in on him near a third-floor stairwell. A cache of guns, more than 25,000 bullets and improvised explosives were recovered from his San Jose home, which authorities say he set on fire by putting bullets in a pot on a stove about an hour before the shootings. That meant the blaze began engulfing his home around the time the massacre was taking place.
Sunday, the FBI confirmed that its evidence team had completed its work at the shooting site. The sheriff’s office is the lead investigative agency for the incident, and and they and other law-enforcement agencies similarly cleared out from Cassidy’s home Friday.
Anyone looking for further information about VTA service changes can call 408-321-2300 or go online to vta.org.