Journalism 133: Prof. Craig: Shooting Edit Exercise
SJSU Shooting Edit Exercise
Downtown San Jose, an area all- too-familiar with pervasive gang related issues, was the setting of a supposed lovers quarrel turned homicide-suicide.
The three individual's who died in the shooting on May 10 were identified at a noon news conference on May 12.
Marcory Tarlit Caliguiran, 25, and Thomas Williams, 26, were accounting majors at SJSU, said Pat Lopes Harris, SJSU’s director of media relations.
The suspected shooter was identified as Napoleon Caliguiran, 54. The suspect was not a SJSU student, but was married to the 25-year-old victim, Harris said. Both victims were supposed to graduate at the end of the Spring semester.
The younger Caliguiran and Williams were both found dead inside a vehicle that was registered to the married couple, and the elder Caliguiran was found suffering from a gunshot wound outside the vehicle shortly after the call came into police at 8:36 p.m.
Jeremy Nguyen, Junior business administration major, was walking with classmates onto the crime scene shortly after gunshots were heard.
“I got out of my night class at 8:30,” said Nguyen. “I was walking with my groupmates on San Fernando Street crossing 10th, when we heard about 7 to 10 firecrackers go off.”
Nguyen and his classmates entered the building and proceded to walk to their cars.
While his friends parked on the 3rd and 4th levels of the structure, Nguyen was parked on the 5th level, which he later find out was where the shootings occurred.
Upon trying to driving his car out of the garage, Nguyen said he had to text his classmate whose car was ahead of his in the line to found out that there had been a shooting and police would not allow anyone to leave the building.
“I had no idea what had happened, only that there had been a shooting,” said Nguyen. “UPD made an announcement over the blue light intercoms that students should stay away from the 10th street garage,” said Nguyen. “But there were still twenty of us in there.”
Nguyen said that around 9:30 the UPD made another announcement over the blue light intercoms that the shooter was in custody.
At that point, Nguyen said he and the others were escorted down to the sidewalk outside by police and interviewed one by one. “We were asked pretty standard questions,” said Nguyen, “They asked If we had heard screaming or seen anything unusual. I didn’t end up leaving campus until about 11 pm.”
Harris said the investigation into the shooting is not yet completed, but so far it appears that the husband shot the two victims before shooting himself.
Caliguiran died shortly after being transported to Santa Clara County Valley Medical Center, Harris said.
Senior student Omar Torres, a political science major, said he knew details about the shooting before anyone else.
Torres, who works as a community organizer with the City of San Jose’s Strong Neighborhoods initiative, said he knew details surrounding the case from his boss.
Torres’ boss, Paul Pereira, a community organizer for the downtown area of San Jose, is described by Torres as very dedicated and proactive individual who has developed a strong relationship with the San Jose Police Department.
While most might have assumed the shootings were a gang-related incident when they first heard, Torres was aware that the shootings were a product of domestic violence long before the majority of the public.
“I work with the City of San Jose and my boss, who has a close relationship with SJPD, was getting the full scoop every other twenty minutes and texting me as well.”
Torres, who was hanging outside of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library with friends around the time of the shootings, mentioned that in addition to the text messages much of the information he and others were receiving was via Twitter.
Upon asking a university security guard outside of the library what was happening, he found it disappointing that university officials didn't not sharing any information with students about what was going on.
“I told the guy there was a lot of talk on Twitter about this, and he still refused to tell me anything more,” said Torres.
For Torres, like many other students, Alert-SJSU was one of the last sources informing him of the shootings in the 10th Street garage.
Torres, said he did not recieve any text news via the system. He said he received an email at about 10:05 p.m. about the parking structure.
“The fact is, a lot of people felt unsafe and at SJSU we are all supposed to feel safe,” Torres said. “This is the first time I haven’t.”
“The shooting was an isolated, targeted and contained incident,” said UPD Lt. Frank Belcastro, addressing the seemingly slow alert times to the campus. “The suspect was in custody and there was no threat to the campus community.”
At a press conference held in front of Clark Hall on Thursday morning, Torres said a spokesperson at the conference addressed the issue of Alert-SJSU, citing that it was not yet up to par.
When asked how he knew about the press conference to begin with, Torres said he heard about it on Twitter. “I wouldn’t have even known about the press conference if people hadn’t re-tweeted it,” he said.
Students at SJSU said they are still having a hard time believing that a shooting took place on campus.
“I think that this whole situation is unfortunate,” said business major Kenneth Oshiro, a senior. “Any situation where there is a loss of life is unfortunate especially when it involves San Jose state students. “We’re lucky, however, that it was an isolated incident that occurred at night and not during the day when a lot of people could have gotten hurt.”
Back to JOUR133 home page
Back to Richard
Craig's Home Page
Send comments and thoughts to profcraig@profcraig.com