THE SAN JOSE WORKPLACE MASS MURDER
On Wednesday, May 26th, 57-year-old Samuel Cassidy, a maintenance worker and nine-year employee of the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) entered his workplace in San Jose, CA, with two 9 mm pistols. He opened fire at a union meeting and fatally shot nine co-workers, firing an estimated 30-40 rounds.
On the day of the shooting, Cassidy left his home at 5:30 a.m. carrying a black duffle bag. His neighbors noticed a fire at the home about an hour later. Investigators believe Cassidy may have started the fire before leaving for work or used a time-delay mechanism that caused the fire to initiate simultaneously with the shooting. The fire damage left the home uninhabitable.
Observers estimated there had been more than 40 people in the building when Cassidy began shooting. Upon the arrival of law enforcement officers, Cassidy shot himself in front of them. According to Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith, the shooter’s actions were “very deliberate, very fast.” In a search of the facility after the shooting, police dogs alerted on the suspect’s locker which was found to contain detonator cords and explosive precursors.
According to Cassidy’s ex-wife, he had a bad temper and a history of flirting with the idea of killing his co-workers at his previous job. She described him as having “mood swings” worsened by heavy drinking.
Cassidy had filed for and was granted a restraining order against a former girlfriend, accusing her of vandalizing his roommate’s car, calling at late hours, hurling insults, and suggesting she had him under surveillance. In her response, she alleged he had mentally and sexually abused her, drank heavily, and had bipolar disorder. A family court judge granted him a restraining order against her. After the shooting, she told reporters they had met on Match.com in 2008, and that he proposed after just two months, which she refused. She also said he became physically abusive, and they dated for less than a year. When they broke up, he took her new car without permission and returned it damaged a month later.
Neighbors and co-workers described Cassidy as “reclusive,” “quiet,” “strange,” “angry,” and “mean.”
The Wall Street Journal reported that Cassidy had been detained by Customs and Border Protection in August 2016 when returning from a trip to the Philippines. According to a Department of Homeland Security memo circulated after the shooting, he professed a hatred of his workplace and possessed “books about terrorism” and writings about “how he hates the VTA.” Whether this information was shared with the VTA or local law enforcement before the shooting is unknown.
Press accounts are thus far silent as to what the management of VTA knew about their employee, but Mayor Sam Liccardo of San Jose was quoted as saying co-workers had “expressed generalized concerns about his mental health.”
When such incidents occur in a U.S. workplace, civil litigation is likely to follow, and key issues in determining whether the employer has tort liability for the fatalities and other injuries will include the procedures for hiring and supervision of employees, the training given to employees and managers, and the extent to which management had policies, procedures, and an organized team for managing employee misconduct. Every detail about what anyone in management knew about the killer’s behavior will be scrutinized, and if our past experience is any guide, extensive discovery efforts will eventually locate many who retrospectively report having observed behaviors that—with the benefit of hindsight and the turbo-charging of hindsight bias—can create an illusion that the violence was foreseeable to the employer even if it was not.
Those seeking to blame VTA for the tragedy will want to know what, if anything, VTA management knew about Cassidy’s history of substance abuse, prior violence, alleged mental illness, anger, thoughts of killing coworkers, and hatred of the VTA, and what was done in response to any information they had. Often the people who had the most relevant observations were those who had no duty to share it with the employer, such as Cassidy’s ex-wife, former girlfriend, neighbors, and Customs and Border Protection. In other cases, important information for risk assessment is protected by the sealing of juvenile records, by HIPAA, by attorney-client privilege, or by other privacy safeguards. In yet other cases, important information is buried in the memories of past employers and co-workers, in law enforcement records that were never entered into data bases, or in records untapped by standard criminal background checks.
Prudent employers can take many steps to mitigate against violence risk, and if you or your clients would like to learn how to do so, please CONTACT OUR SISTER COMPANY, TAG.
This synopsis is based on a dozen news reports, copies of which are available to clients upon request.