Two Dead, Four Wounded In San Jose Shooting

One upside to the COVID response is that because large groups are tightly restricted, we tended to not have nearly as many mass shootings. Oh, someone could have pulled one off if they wanted, I suppose, but many of their favorite targets were shut down, leaving mass shooters with nothing to do.

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Now that restrictions have eased, we’ve seen more shootings of groups.

Last night, though, a vigil for the victim of a traffic accident in San Jose was marred by gunfire.

A family member of one of the victims who died in a late-night mass shooting near San Jose State University on Wednesday told KPIX 5 that her brother-in-law who was killed had no gang affiliation.

Police said two people were killed and four others injured when a gunman opened fire on a crowd gathered next to a sidewalk memorial for a traffic accident victim in a neighborhood near San Jose State late Tuesday night.

Friends and family members of one of the shooting victims gathered at the scene early Wednesday morning. They said the crowd was there last night for a vigil at a makeshift sidewalk memorial for 22-year-old Jose De Jesus Perez Leyva, who died in a crash on Tuesday.

Witnesses said for some reason, a gunman drove up in a white muscle car and opened fire on the crowd.

San Jose police said officers who responded to the 600 block of S. 8th Street late Tuesday night found a total of five gunshot victims. Two of the victims were declared dead at the scene, police said, three others were taken to local hospitals and were expected to survive.

During the investigation, it was discovered that a sixth person also has been shot. That victim suffered a non-life threatening injury and was also being treated at a local hospital.

So the good news is that the two killed at the scene are likely to be the only two fatalities.

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The bad news, of course, is that there were two fatalities.

Thus far, investigators say that don’t have any suspects, nor do they even have a motive. Police reportedly spent 17 hours on the scene gathering evidence.

However, there appear to be indications that despite the family’s protestations that one of the victims wasn’t involved in gang activity, this may have been gang-related. Of course, those two things aren’t mutually exclusive. After all, gangs are notorious for hitting innocent bystanders and not really caring.

Since the lockdown more or less ended throughout the nation, we’ve seen more and more acts of violence. This is particularly true since George Floyd’s death and the following madness that seems to have swept the nation.

Many of these have been termed “mass shootings” by the Gun Violence Archive, which has always had a looser definition of the term than most other sources. No doubt, this one will be categorized as such by them as well.

Regardless, though, this incident will have an impact on a lot of people, including those who weren’t hit. They all deserve our prayers.

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