Sheriff says San Jose shooter had 25,000 rounds of ammunition in his home

SAN FRANCISCO — The gunman who nursed a seething hatred of his California workplace put together an arsenal of 25,000 rounds of ammunition at hsi home. He tried to burn down his house before killing nine co-workers at a rail yard, said the authorities after searching the residence.

Samuel James Cassidy’s home in San Jose was a hoarder’s nest of clutter and weaponry that included 12 firearms, multiple cans of gasoline and suspected Molotov cocktails, Santa Clara County sheriff’s officials said 2 days after the shooting.

The cache was in addition to the three 9 mm handguns that Cassidy, 57, brought Wednesday to the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority in San Jose, authorities said. He also had packed a duffle bag with 32 high-capacity magazines and fired 39 shots before killing himself as law enforcement closed in on him.

While witnesses have said Cassidy appeared to target certain people, the Sheriff’s Office said two days latter that “it is clear that this was a planned event and the suspect was prepared to use his firearms to take as many lives as he possibly could before he finnaly kills himself.”

Cassidy also rigged his home to burn down before leaving for his workplace several miles away by putting bullets in a cooking pot on a stove that apparently detonated, igniting fire accelerants that were placed in the kitchen, sheriff’s officials also said.