Police identify gunman in deadly Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting, 6-year-old boy among those killed
GILROY, Calif. (KTVU) - Law enforcement officials on Monday identified the Gilroy Garlic Festival shooter as 19-year-old Santino William Legan.
Outside his home in Gilroy, about a mile from police headquarters, police and ATF agents swarmed his two-story sand-colored home. An ATF agent answered the door, telling KTVU that no one from the family would be speaking.
"I'm shocked," said neighbor Elisa Scettrini. "I still can't believe it. I'm living a nightmare right now. I'm numb."
Another neighbor, Kawika Palacios, said she heard police knock on the door and shout for the residents to come out with their hands up.
Witneses describe Gilroy shooter loading rifle silently
Neighbors said that two parents and two sons lived there and that they were nice. A woman who lives across the street said Legan had not lived there for at least a year, and SWAT officers came to the home Sunday night. Jeffrey Dickson called the Legans "a nice, normal family."
"It's crazy to think this would happen here," he said.
Not much else was known about Legan, other than what witnesses described they saw at the festival on Sunday about 5:40 p.m. Police say Legan killed three people -- including 6-year-old Stephen Luciano Romero, 13-year-old Keyla Salazar from San Jose, and Trevor Irbay, who was in his 20s and graduated from a school near Rochester, NY, -- before he was shot to death by police.
Nineteen others were injured; 11 by gunshot, according to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center spokeswoman Joy Alexiou.
Legan had sneaked into the festival by cutting a hole in a fence and he was armed with a SKS AK-47-style rifle, witnesses and police said. Police Chief Scot Smithee said a second suspect could be on the loose, but later said "we really don't know."
At a news conference, Smithee said that Legan legally bought the rifle on July 9 in Nevada. The FBI said that agents were looking into his motivation and ideological philosophy. Legan had no criminal history in Santa Clara County.
The Gilroy Garlic Festival features food, cooking contests and music. It's a decades-old staple in the agricultural city of 50,000 about 80 miles southeast of San Francisco. Festival goers pass through metal detectors and their bags are searched at the event.
4 killed including suspect, 12 wounded at Garlic Gilroy Festival
President Trump addressed the deadly rampage from a podium at the White House.
"While families were spending time together at a local festival, a wicked murderer opened fire and killed three innocent civilians, including a young child. We grieve for their families, we ask God to comfort them with overflowing mercy and grace, praying for those recovering in the hospital."