Suspect arrested Sunday in VTA shooting that left one dead

A Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) employee was arrested near his San Jose home Sunday afternoon in the alleged murder of a VTA bus driver he knew, a Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office spokesman said Sunday night.

The suspect was identified as Duc Minh Bui, 33, sheriff’s spokesman Brooks Jarosz said. Neither the victim’s name nor the nature of Bui’s relationship with the victim were released, although Jarosz said the two men knew each other.

Although his name has not been officially released, the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office listed him as a 45-year-old man who lived in San Jose.

The shooting happened around 9:40 p.m. Friday in the parking lot of the VTA’s Chaboya Division Yard on South 7th Street in San Jose. A 911 call alerted the San Jose Fire Department to the shooting. Crews arrived on scene and found the victim had been shot at least once. He was pronounced dead at the scene, Jarosz said.

A police source told the Bay Area News Group that the victim was believed to have been “targeted.” VTA CEO and General Manager Carolyn Gonot said Saturday that the shooting appeared to be an “isolated incident.”

The shooting comes more than three years after a disgruntled VTA mechanic gunned down nine of his co-workers at VTA’s Guadalupe rail yard in San Jose before shooting himself in the head.

The May 2021 mass shooting, the deadliest in Bay Area history, sparked discussions about long-term improvements to workplace safety at the agency and enhanced security measures for employees at the shooting scene.

Numerous lawsuits have been filed against VTA, the sheriff’s office and Allied Universal, a private security company contracted to protect VTA facilities, by families of those killed and by a former bus driver who claims his post-traumatic stress disorder was worsened by the mass shooting.

Friday’s shooting left VTA employees shocked and confused, said Raj Singh, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union. Some employees were leaving work at the time of the shooting, Singh said, while others learned the news via text message.