California transit worker kills 8, extending US epidemic of mass shootings

Investigators wait to enter a building at the scene of a mass shooting at the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) light-rail yard in San Jose, California.

A California transit employee killed eight co-workers and wounded another before taking his own life on Wednesday, the latest in a spate of deadly US mass shootings, prompting the state's governor to ask: ‘What the hell is wrong with us?’ Authorities did not immediately offer many details or a possible motive for the shooting, which unfolded about 6:30 a.m. Pacific Time (1330 GMT) at a light-rail yard for commuter trains of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), in the heart of Silicon Valley in the San Francisco Bay Area. A bomb squad was searching the yard and adjacent buildings after at least one explosive device was found, Santa Clara County Sheriff's Deputy Russell Davis said at a news conference. Sheriff Laurie Smith told reporters that gunfire was still going on when her first deputies arrived on the scene, and that the assailant took his own life, apparently when he became aware that police were closing in on him.