Silicon Valley shooter apprehended

A LAID OFF engineer who shot and killed three people in his former workplace, SiPort, a fabless digital radio semiconductor startup in Santa Clara, has finally been apprehended.

47-year-old Jing Hua Wu was taken into custody by police in Mountain View yesterday morning, after shooting to death his former-firm’s CEO, Sid Agrawal, VP of Operations, Brian Pugh and head of human resources, Marilyn Lewis on Friday afternoon.

Wu, a lead product test engineer at SiPort, had been laid off from the firm Friday morning, had left, but then returned around 3pm. According to Santa Clara Police Chief Steve Lodge, Wu had asked if he could meet with Agrawal, Pugh and Lewis to talk about his options for future employment. He apparently gave no indication of his mindset, before pulling out a 9mm handgun just before 4pm and shooting his three victims multiple times.

After the killings, Wu escaped in his car, leading to a frantic police manhunt, which ended yesterday morning when the killer was thrown into Santa Clara County Jail charged with three counts of homicide.

It is still unclear whether the murder weapon, which Police have yet to recover, was bought legally by Wu or not and whether Wu was even a US citizen. µ

L'Inq
San Jose Mercury News