Skip to content
Connect
Stories

California shooter an employer’s worst nightmare

People in this story

International Business Times, May 2021

A disgruntled, heavily-armed employee shows up at work and murders nine of his colleagues: this week’s carnage at a California rail yard is every American employer’s worst nightmare come true. Samuel Cassidy, a 57-year-old white man, fired around 40 shots Wednesday at the public transport rail yard where he worked as a maintenance man in San Jose, California. He was not the first US employee to commit mass murder at work, and in a country awash with guns he is unlikely to be the last.

From 1970 to 1990, employees or ex-employees of the US Postal System alone killed around 40 people in a series of shooting at mail facilities. Americans invented the term “going postal” to describe spasms of violence in the workplace.

The coronavirus pandemic provided a pause in this violence. But as many companies reopened, with this came a return of shootings. In April an employee at a furniture store in Texas shot and killed one person, and a former employee killed eight people at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis, Indiana.

When police arrived at the rail yard on Wednesday, Cassidy killed himself. Three semi-automatic pistols and 32 magazines were found on him. “He was very deliberate, very fast; he knew where employees would be,” Sheriff Laurie Smith told NBC television. A search this week of Cassidy’s home — which was set ablaze shortly before the attack — discovered 12 guns, some 22,000 rounds of ammunition, and suspected Molotov cocktails, Smith said in a statement Friday. His motive has yet to be determined.

Continue reading at International Business Times.

More Stories

There are two northern white rhinos left, both females. Here’s how science hopes to save them from extinction

03.19.2023

A controversial technology is creating an unprecedented rift among climate scientists

03.17.2023

Police cars are a form of PR — and the message is always the same

03.20.23
In the News