As radio commentators on Silicon Valley airwaves analyzed the latest mass shooting in Texas, local officials gathered outside a mental health facility in San Jose to mark the year that’s passed since the one that happened on Valley Transportation Authority property.
On May 26, 2021, Valley Transportation Authority employee Samuel James Cassidy, 57, killed nine people at a rail yard before committing suicide.
One year later, a commemorative event was held at the 526 Resiliency Center—formerly the VTA Resiliency Center—which is being relaunched to provide counseling and workshops to transit workers and first responders, their families, and the wider community.
The District Attorney’s Office says the center will also raise awareness about workplace violence and help to identify problems before they happen.
The May 26 ceremony was colored by the killing of 19 students and two teachers in a shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, two days earlier—and another mass shooting in Buffalo, days earlier.
Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez said the Resiliency Center is meant to help emergency responders deal with the challenges they face on a daily basis.
“It’s very difficult to separate yourselves from what you see,” she said. “Everybody needs help.”
And she urged the dozens in attendance not to hesitate to seek assistance.
“You don’t have to be afraid to feel,” she said, thanking the District Attorney’s Office for the refocused center. “I couldn’t be more grateful to the men and women who serve this community.”
Susan Ellenberg, vice president of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, said more needs to be done to remove firearms from the local streets.
“I’m not going to be eloquent,” she said. “I am just so pissed.”
She also expressed frustration with the inability of Democrats to make any progress on gun reform in Congress, despite controlling both the legislative and executive branch of the U.S. government.
“Santa Clara County is doing everything we can to keep guns off our streets,” she said. “But we cannot do this alone.”
The recent mass shootings show these are “universal challenges,” Ellenberg added.
“I’m crushed for the families who lost children earlier this week,” she said. “I do wish I had something more uplifting to offer.”
San Jose Vice Mayor Chappie Jones praised first responders for running towards danger during the San Jose shooting, and the transit authority for how it dealt with the tragedy.
“The community of VTA was challenged,” he said. “But we rose together.”
Jones told how one of his good friends was killed in a 1989 freeway shooting.
The outpouring of support in the wake of his grief taught him just how “wealthy” your friends make you. He recalled how the priest at the funeral remarked on how packed the church was, and said the same holds true for the VTA shooting victims.
“They were so loved,” he said. “I hope we also remember the light of our loved ones.”
Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith presented a flag—the very one that flew over the Guadalupe yard while investigators were combing through the property in the aftermath of the mass shooting—to VTA CEO Carolyn Gonot.
“It stood as a symbol of motivation to our personnel,” she explained. “This flag belongs with VTA as a memory of those who were lost.”
Gonot said she was honored to accept the Stars and Stripes, and thanked the sheriff for the actions of the deputies that day.
“We are forever indebted to you,” she said, adding she’s aware law enforcement officers suffered psychological injuries. “We know there’s a great deal of trauma.”
Gonot noted the effects of the mass shooting have rippled far and wide.
“The victims are not just those who have fallen,” she said. “That’s tens of thousands of people who get affected.
“And that’s just one mass shooting.”
Next, District Attorney Jeff Rosen presented medals to first responders who raced to the transit agency’s property.
“We’re grateful for the lives you were able to save a year ago today,” he said. “They’re heroes.”
First responders are the people the community relies on to calm down arguments, to put out brush fires—or to stop a gunman—Rosen said.
“I’m so thankful for that vigilance, that dedication, that bravery,” he said. “We will try to help them here at the 526 Resiliency Center.”
He, too, reflected on the recent tragedies in Texas and Buffalo, and reminded the crowd of the 2019 Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting that resulted in four deaths.
“It makes you wonder about people; it makes you worried,” he said, adding first responders demonstrate the positive side of human nature. “Here are people who give you hope.”
After the performance of an operatic number that began, “When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high,” Karrey Benbow, the mother of Jose Hernandez III, a 35-year-old mechanic killed in the VTA shooting, stepped forward.
“I shouldn’t be here. I hate that we’re here. I want to thank all of you that responded,” were her first words. “My personal thoughts are that it could have been prevented. 100%. Had people listened to the complaints of my son.”
She recalled breaking the news to her son’s sister—that he’d died in a mass shooting.
“Her reply was, ‘Which one?’” she said. “Which one? Really?”
She doesn’t like it when people tell her to “be strong,” she said.
Benbow explained she decided to wear the same outfit she had on the last time she hung out with her son—riding on a motorcycle and having lunch together—and recognized John Courtney, the president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 265.
“Wow! You are an unsung hero,” she said. “My son loved you. I know you loved my son.”
Now, life is a “day-by-day, moment-by-moment process,” she said, as she tries to come to terms with the void left by the loss of a child with whom she was inseparable.
“That’s my blood; that’s my boy,” she said. “I would have given everything to take those bullets.”
Benbow received a standing ovation, and later, after being overcome by grief, she was consoled by a small group who gathered around her.
Those interested in receiving services at The 526 Resiliency Center at 353 W. Julian St. can call 669.308.1475 for more information.
If you know someone who may be a danger to themselves, call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255.
