you're watching getting answers live on abc 7. hulu live. and wherever you stream. we're asking experts your questions every day at 3:00 to get answers for you in realtime. today we're focusing on the rail yard mass shooting that left nine people dead yesterday. we're looking at the bigger picture and having a conversation that happens after every tragedy like this one. gun violence and what can actually be done. but first, bta employee and witness to the mass shooting, kirk joining us today. our deepest sympathies.

>> thank you. >> i know you lost colleagues, many you've known for many years because you worked there for 12. what do you do at the rail yard? >> i work in the signalling system. the trains have a system very similar to ridiculous traffic control. regular traffic control. lights, controlling the lights, crossing and safety. >> you didn't expect going to work yesterday would turn out so differently. you do have a lot of insight into the gunman, sam cassidy, and the way the tragedy unfolded. but before we get into that and your harrowing experience, i want to honor the nine victims. and i would like to show their pictures. there will be a public vigil outside city hall at 6:00. could you please tell us about one or two of these men that you knew best?

>> just a fun loving, straight up guy. and ambee, he was always joking around. and that one guy you baernlted with. bantered with. a ged hearted person. goodhearted person. >> i want to ask you, yesterday you talked first with my colleague. and you said cassidy, the gunman, wasn't shooting randomly. you said he had a specific agenda and targeted certain people. who was he targeting? >> he was targeting the people that he worked with directly. there were many other people in the building. there were -- the people that he shot were people that he interfaced with, worked

side by side every day. he didn't come down to my department. we were there. three of us were in our department. i don't know how many people were in the track department. and the stations would probably be coming in right about that time. but he specifically shot the people that he was mad at. and he shot around and didn't shoot somebody that was in the booth. didn't hurt her at all. he knew what he wanted. and then he went over to the other building. he walked by many other employees and was cool and calm. and he sought us out targets and shot them. >> so you're saying those nine victims, they were not chosen -- i mean, it was not random. they were chosen. because he worked with them. so defer say anything about negative encounters with

these people? and whether, you know, he felt some sort of grievance at their hands? did he say anything like that that you know about? >> my interaction with sam cassidy has been light, cordial interaction. hello. how you doing. those kind of simple things. i talked to him recently. he wanted to know about technical issues on his side. and he was always very nice and professional. and after looking back on everything, i don't think he would have harmed me at all or my fellow signalmen because we never had any kind of run-in with him. whatsoever. >> interesting the different

perspectives that people had of him. i tacked first with my colleague. you talked first with my colleague. you also told him that this is not about other things. it's about how they treat their employees. what did you mean by that? >> well, they have maybe one specific example. that unit wanted to get arrow lane lanes. and it's actually part of you, he ended up doing it. that's

necessary. it's -- to keep us safe. and that's the kind of culture that we've dealt with. and sam felt that. and everybody felt that. and it's just the culture. and it's just the way it works. we try to make a difference. and we can't. we're running up against a wall. and it's extremely frustrating. >> right. >> and i know it's frustrating for everybody else. >> not in any way justifying what he did. not even a little bit. we just want to make that clear. not everyone who thinks they were mistreated at work hurts other people. i want to ask you if you said your encountered someone who seems to be a nice guy. that indicates me that you were surprised by this. let me tell you what the wall street journal reported this afternoon. u.s. border and

customs protection detained cassidy in 2013. and he had books about terrorism and fears and manifestos and a black memo book filled with notes about how he hates the bta. does this surprise you? did you know about this at all? >> at this point we're gonna need to say i don't have any of the facts in this. but what i'm hearing now is that many people reported to manage thament cassidy was a hair trigger. that he was voted most likely to be an active shooter. and they didn't do anything about this. and i've seen this time and time again. i work with good people. and you're always wondering this is the next one? and you bring it up, and they just blow it off. >> let's stick with what you do know. did you get some sort of

e-mail or any sort of memo to warn you, possibly, about cassidy? >> not at all. >> okay. and do you know there was a disciplinary action taken against him? because that question was asked at the news conference. but they declined to address that. >> yeah, no. i hadn't heard anything about cassidy. and now the other people are saying that he had a temper, and like i said i feel sick because i don't know. i was around him and never saw anything. the only thing i do know is that cassidy was an outsider he want didn't fit in with the group. he didn't -- i never saw him interact with the guys he worked with. he was a square peg trying to fit in a round hole. and it's a very hardcore, blue collar

electrician. if you don't fit in, they're gonna beat you up about it. and if you can't handle it, that's the only thing i can see. is that the people that he went after had rubbed him the wrong way through the years. and he snapped. you and i wouldn't do something like that but he did. >> all right. i'm gonna guess you will you go back to work? obviously not miscellaneous but do you feel safe and will you go back? >> oh, absolutely. there's an old saying, lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place. it's such a tragedy. this is a once in a lifetime deal. yeah, i don't have a problem going back. i just hope -- my message is that i hope bta management is listening to me and other people

and follow up to change the culture and change management and make a difference going forward. >> kurt, before i let you go, i know yesterday when you asked to my colleague, trying to tend to people who are injured, and the thing that you saw, do you find that you can't stop thinking about it? >> yeah, the thing i can't stop thinking about the most is only if we were armed, we could have put a stop to it right then and there. we may have been able to stop cassidy from going around and shooting everybody a second time. we would have definitely been able to prevent him from going over to the other building and getting those guys. i ran to my truck to see if i could jump in my truck and run him down. but the thing that really bothered me was that my second

amendment rights were denied by this outfit. if i had been armed, i could have stopped him. >> all right. i understand what you're saying in terms of how you're feeling. obl the solution is one that's controversial and not everyone agrees with. and there's who would say what you propose would lead to more violence. i do understand what you're going through and feeling. and i'm glad you're okay most of all. >> thank you. coming up next, folks. we'll turn the conversation to gun violence. and what i hi, i'm debra. i'm from colorado. i've been married to my high school sweetheart for 35 years. i'm a mother of four-- always busy. i was starting to feel a little foggy. just didn't feel like things were as sharp as i knew they once were. i heard about prevagen and then i started taking it about two years now. started noticing things a little sharper, a little clearer. i feel like it's kept me on my game.

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we'reki with abou it.ma sotgs what can we do to stop it. thank you for joining us. >> my pleasure.hi we all agree. we have a problem with gun violence. we definitely don't all agree on the solution. but in february you held what solution did you explore? >> we know if we do evidence-based policy in this field, we have reductions. not mass shootings like this and tragedy. we also know over 100 people lose their lives every day in america and 60% of those folks take their own lives, suicide. that's personal for me. my dad took his life with a gun

32 years ago. so we know background checks. we know that connecting people's record with it and their behavioral health issue fist they get the treatment they need. all of those things make for a safer environment. >> laws have their place. a lot of people are pointing to hey, look we have a red flag gun law in california where we can raise the red flag. you know the person and you think they could hurt someone. we have had that since september. but it didn't stop this. why would we now believe that a federal red flag law, if it was enacted, we would be any safer? >> no law is perfect. just like no human being is perfect. that doesn't preclude you from doing the best you can. it promotes public health and safety. that's the important thing. so we have to ask why he was able to get the guns he had.

given his behavioral health issues and domestic violence issues. >> right. i want to ask you though, if the house has passed -- if it passes more laws to close loopholes. president biden is definitely pushing for right now. of course in the past, it's died in the senate. does that bring us back to ending the filibuster debate? is that even realistic? >> i think so. i think we should. the filibuster, it was instituted, in my view, when this country was very divided vis-a-vis race and slavery. so why would we keep it? we don't have a filibuster in the house. why should the senate? >> right. i want to pass this on. i think it's relevant. the wall street journal is reporting just this afternoon that u.s. customs and border patrol actually detained the gunman in 2016 and found he had books about terrorism and fear and manifestos and memo books filled with notes about how he hates the bta. i assume it goes into a

database. do they then need to share it with local authorities or the employer? iment to turn our attention to something else you've been vocal on recently.

and in the past year, you've stepped up in terms of violence against asian-americans. you and congresswoman barbara lee are holding a town hall tomorrow to address that. what will you focus on? >> judy chu, a wonderful colleague who's been chair of the pacific islanders caucus is joining us. is is barbara and i started these discussions about race six years ago. and they have been wonderful. now they're a model that is used by members around the country. it's important that we talk about these issues. and identify our own problems in order to make people aware that these biases and prejudices exist. and we shouldn't tolerate them. >> hopefully a lot more direct support comes out of that. >> yes.

so one of the things about these issues is you get information, you talk, you listen to people, and then you try to pass policy. that will improve people's lives. here in california, we have a lot of diversity. and it's been very troubling to see some of this hate directed at asians and pacific islanders. >> yeah, we all deserve the right to feel safe. we all contribute to the fabric and fiber of this country. let's celebrate them and hold discussions together. that town hall is tomorrow. people can see it on all your social media channels streamed and reserved. thank you so much. coming up next a stanford professional will be joining us to talk more about the issue of gun violence. he calls it a unique american problem. we're talking about that when we co

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welcome back. gun violence and gun control. i topic coming up with every national story about mass shootings. the latest sadly has rocked the bay area. thank you for joining us, professor donahue. even before this, mass shootings were on the rise. if guwith three people dead or injured so far this year we have had 232 mass shootings. you call this a american gun problem. explain. >> well, among other country, we stand out both in the number of guns that we have. and also in the number of gun deaths and overall homicides that we have per capita. so if you look at what happened today, or yesterday in san jose, that's roughly close to the number of gun deaths that there will be in

japan in an entire year. so it's a smaller country. about 125 million. but it gives you a sense of the relative disproportionality that we see in the u.s. in overall gun deaths and certainly with mass shootings as well. >> some people will say hey, we're safer if we take away the guns. other people say no, we're safer if we have more guns. one of the witnesses yesterday, she was just saying to us, hey, i wish i had my weapon, we could all carry, this wouldn't have happened. i could have stopped him. what is your thought on that? what does the evidence show about that? >> the evidence actually shows that more guns ends up leading to more crime, which is what you would expect. given the fact that we among affluent countries have the highest gun deaths of any affluent country. and by far we have the most guns. obviously

if i was standing next to lee harvey oswald just before he shot, and i had a gun, that would be a nice thing. but the problem is that if you had enough guns to try to take out each miscreant, it would mean that guns would be everywhere in society. and we know that the more guns there are, the more mishaps there will be, the more road rage type killings. and certainly one thing that is very omnipresent in the u.s. is that roughly 400,000 guns are stolen every year. so if a lot more people start carrying guns, they're arming the criminal element. and that of course leads to more crime as well. >> do you think that, the prevalence of guns in the hands of citizens, some meaning to do good, others meaning to do bad and harm, is that affecting this figure? that american police officers shoot and kill at much higher levels than officers in other wealthy nations?

>> there's no question that the prevalence of guns makes police much more apprehensive about citizen interactions. and in fact there's very, very strong empirical evidence that the more guns in a state, the more police shootings there will be. >> why? is that because they're afraid to be shot? >> yeah. and sometimes their straining not particularly helpful. the nra runs a lot of these police training exercises. and they tell them every time you approach a person, this could be an opportunity to die that day. so they sort of encourage the police in this attitude of shooting faster. so if you compare us to england, for example, or germany, our police kill at 100 times the rate of what we see in european countries when it comes to much

less prevalence. >> i want to explore some solutions. president biden is talking getting congress to pass more common sense gun laws. i wonder what that would look like. we had an assault weapons ban that expired. let's say if we did reinstate that and did beef up background checks. would that do much now when there's so many weapons out there already? >> of course things are getting worse all the time. so it would be good to at least hear that first. but it is a tragedy that the federal assault weapon ban was allowed to lapse in 2004. as you say, the gun industry took advantage of that and told millions of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines that would have been banned. so to fully address the problem, you would have to take more introducive measures that are likely to occur. but at least we

would like to restrain the damage and prevent the increasing harm that we will continue to see if we don't take measures. thankfully california has seen a lot of measures in the last few years and we went from having a higher murder rate in the rest of the country to having a lower firearm murder rate in california. >> right there is progress in california on that front. don't go away. we have to take a short break on the air. but on facebook live, and folks you're welcome to join us for the conversation. we're gonna get

to you again soon, i'm sure. >> thank you so much for joining us for this difficult conversation. we talked to a

witness and survivor of yesterday's vta rail yard mass shooting. we do want to leave you with the photos of the victims. not going back to their families. tonight at 6:00, a vigil at city hall tonight the horror now revealed. what we now know about the gunman in that deadly workplace shooting. the transit employee accused of killing nine co-workers before shooting and killing himself. tonight authorities calling the suspect a highly disgruntled employee. the gunman armed with three semiautomatic handguns firing 39 shots and what we learned after reporting he was questioned by federal authorities after a trip overseas and his alleged kers.ngs that he hated tonight, eyewitnesses say he appeared to target some of his victims telling others, he was not going to shoot them. and the loved ones lost, we're now learning their name, their story, the wife of one of the victims saying her husband later

died in the hospital in her arms. also tonight as millions of americans travel for memorial