Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
Gilroy Pledges to Remain Strong in Wake of Festival Shooting
gvw_ap_news
By Associated Press
Published 5 years ago on
July 30, 2019

Share

GILROY — Only a few days ago, Gilroy was known for one thing: garlic. The rural community near San Francisco lived and breathed the prized, pungent crop.
Now it’s the site of the latest American mass shooting.
On Sunday evening, a 19-year-old gunman with apparent white supremacist views slipped into the annual Gilroy Garlic Festival and unloaded a military-style rifle before police shot him to death.
On Monday night, hundreds of residents held a candlelight vigil to mourn a 6-year-old boy, a 13-year-old girl and a New York college graduate who were slain. Twelve others were injured.
As they raised votive candles, long tapers or tea lights, they also raised their spirits in the defiant cry of “Gilroy Strong.”
A sign reading the same underneath an American flag covered in two garlic cloves hung from the front of the stage.
“We cannot let the bastard that did this tear us down,” Mayor Roland Velasco declared to cheers.
It was the cry heard so often after shootings at schools, parks, movies, nightclubs and festivals around the country.
From Washington, President Donald Trump condemned the “wicked murderer.”

Shooter Legally Purchased Military-Style Rifle in Nevada

The shooting brought out renewed demands for national gun control by politicians in California, which already has some of the strictest firearms laws in the nation. Gov. Gavin Newsom called for controls on high-powered, high-capacity guns he labeled “weapons of mass destruction.”
“Today, I met with a 12-year-old who was shot while in a bounce house. A grandmother mourning the loss of her 6-year-old grandson,” Newsom tweeted. “This is America today — the shootings continue. Loved ones are buried. Children are gunned down. And Congress does nothing.”


“It keeps happening, over and over and over again, on their damn watch,” Newsom told reporters. “I can’t put borders up in a neighboring state where you can buy this damn stuff legally.”
The shooter, Santino William Legan, legally purchased the semi-automatic military-style SKS rifle this month in Nevada, where his last address is listed. Under a California law that went into effect Jan. 1, residents younger than 21 are barred from firearms purchases unless they are in the military or law enforcement. The minimum purchase age is 18 in Nevada, where firearms laws are less restrictive.
While authorities sought a motive for the killings, he had posted white supremacist views. He urged his Instagram followers to read a 19th century book popular with white supremacists on extremist websites. It appeared with a photo of Smokey the Bear in front of a “fire danger” sign. Legan also complained about overcrowding towns and paving open space to make room for “hordes” of Latinos and Silicon Valley whites.
In his last Instagram post Sunday, Legan sent a photo from the Gilroy Garlic Festival minutes before opening fire.
Under it, he wrote: “Ayyy garlic festival time” and “Come get wasted on overpriced” items. Legan’s since-deleted Instagram account says he is Italian and Iranian.

Shooting Follows Series of Mass Killings in California

The postings are among the first details that have emerged about Legan since authorities say he appeared to fire at random, sending people running and diving under tables. Police patrolling the event responded within a minute and killed Legan as he turned the weapon on them.

Big Mikes Gun and Ammo in Fallon, Nevada, said on its Facebook page that Legan ordered the rifle off its website and “was acting happy and showed no reasons for concern” when the store owner met him. The post said it was “heartbroken this could ever happen.”
Legan grew up less than a mile from the park where the city known as the “Garlic Capital of the World” has held its three-day festival for four decades, attracting more than 100,000 people with music, food booths, and cooking classes.
Police searched Legan’s vehicle and the two-story Legan family home, leaving with paper bags. Authorities also searched an apartment they believed Legan used this month in remote northern Nevada. Officials didn’t say what they found.
Big Mikes Gun and Ammo, which appears to be a home-based internet gun shop in Fallon, Nevada, said on its Facebook page that Legan ordered the rifle off its website and “was acting happy and showed no reasons for concern” when the store owner met him. The post said it was “heartbroken this could ever happen.”
The shooting followed a series of mass killings in California, including an attack at a Thousand Oaks bar in November where 12 people died and a 2015 terrorist attack in San Bernardino where 14 were killed. The nation’s worst modern mass shooting remains a 2017 attack at a country music concert in Las Vegas where a gunman killed 58 and injured hundreds.
In California, police had training in how to respond to an active shooter. While they prepared for the worst, they never expected to use those skills in Gilroy, a city of about 50,000 roughly 80 miles southeast of San Francisco.
The city had security in place for one of the largest food fairs in the U.S. It required people to pass through metal detectors and have their bags searched. Police, paramedics and firefighters were stationed throughout the festival.
But Legan didn’t go through the front entrance. He cut through a fence bordering a parking lot next to a creek, Gilroy Police Chief Scot Smithee said. Some witnesses reported a second suspect, and authorities were trying to determine if he had any help.
Photo of Christmas Hill Park
Vendor booths line Christmas Hill Park on Monday at the site of a shooting the day before at the Gilroy Garlic Festival. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Youngest Victim Had Just Celebrated 6th Birthday

The gunfire sent people in sunhats and flip-flops running away screaming. Some dove for cover under the decorated food booth tables. Others crawled under a concert stage, where a band had started playing its last song.
Candice Marquez, 51, a honey vendor at the festival, said she was just 10 feet from the shooter and saw him replace a clip of ammunition.
“He was super quiet, he was reloading, and we ran,” she told the San Francisco Chronicle.
The youngest victim, Stephen Romero, described by his grandmother as a kind, happy and playful kid, had just celebrated his 6th birthday in June at Legoland in Southern California.
“My son had his whole life to live and he was only 6,” his father, Alberto Romero, told San Francisco Bay Area news station KNTV after the shooting.
Also killed was 13-year-old Keyla Salazar from San Jose. The teen was eating ice cream with family members when they heard gunshots and began to flee, said her aunt, Katiuska Vargas.
The teen stayed back to keep pace with a relative who uses a cane and was shot with a bullet that otherwise might have hit that woman, Vargas said.
Vargas says Keyla’s stepfather was wounded as he went back for her.
Keyla loved animals and was planning on getting a puppy for one of her two younger sisters, Vargas said.
“She was such a caring person,” Vargas said. “She would give everything to other people … We lost a really beautiful life.”

‘A Nice, Normal Family’

The oldest victim killed was Trevor Irby, 25, a biology major who graduated in 2017 from Keuka College in upstate New York.
Troy Towner said his sister, Wendy Towner, was at the festival for her business, the Honey Ladies, when she saw a man with a gun climb over the fence. She yelled at him: “No, you can’t do that!”

“How do you cope with this? They have to deal with the fact that their son did this terrible thing and that he died.” — Jan Dickson, a neighbor who lives across the street from the Legan family
The gunman shot her in the leg and her husband three times, while a young girl dragged their 3-year-old son under a table, Towner wrote on a fundraising page he set up for his sister.
Legan then approached the couple as they lay motionless on the ground and asked if they were all right. They didn’t move, fearing he would finish them off, Towner wrote.
Towner said his sister underwent surgery and was expected to have long-term nerve damage, while her husband faces many surgeries.
Candice Marquez, who works for Wendy Towner and her husband, Francisco, told The Associated Press that she had stepped away to go to the bathroom and saw the gunman heading to their tent. She said her 10-year-old niece helped the toddler to safety.
“She was brave,” Marquez said.
Jan Dickson, a neighbor who lives across the street from the Legan family, described them as “a nice, normal family.” She said Santino Legan had not lived there for at least a year.
“How do you cope with this? They have to deal with the fact that their son did this terrible thing and that he died,” Dickson said.

DON'T MISS

Augillard, Douglas Lead the Way as Bulldogs Rally Past Long Beach State

DON'T MISS

Israel Strikes Without Warning in Beirut, Kills at Least 15 as Cease-Fire Sought

DON'T MISS

Trump Taps Rollins as Ag Chief in Final Cabinet Pick

DON'T MISS

Fresno State Becomes Bowl Eligible, Defeats Colorado State on Senior Night

DON'T MISS

After Fresno Visit, Newsom Announces $24.7M Taxpayer-Funded Apprenticeship Program

DON'T MISS

How Will Merced County Fund Public Safety After Measure R’s Failure?

DON'T MISS

As Atmospheric River Soaks California, Farmworkers Await Flood Aid Promised in 2023

DON'T MISS

Sacramento Region Gained People but Flubbed Economic Opportunities Over 50 Years

DON'T MISS

Nations at UN Climate Talks Agree on $300B a Year for Poor Countries in a Compromise Deal

DON'T MISS

What to Know About Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Trump’s Pick for Labor Secretary

UP NEXT

As Atmospheric River Soaks California, Farmworkers Await Flood Aid Promised in 2023

UP NEXT

Tulare County Man Arrested After Allegedly Threatening to Kill Middle School Girls, Staff

UP NEXT

Listeria Outbreak Tied to Yu Shang Food Leaves California Infant Dead and 10 People Sick

UP NEXT

Northern California Gets Record Rain and Heavy Snow. Many Have Been in the Dark for Days in Seattle

UP NEXT

Newsom Gaslights on Potential Gas Price Hikes in Fresno Visit

UP NEXT

What Will Happen to CNBC and MSNBC When They No Longer Have a Corporate Connection to NBC News?

UP NEXT

Major Storm Drops Record Rain, Downs Trees in Northern California After Devastation Further North

UP NEXT

Newsom Heads to Fresno, a County That Voted for Trump

UP NEXT

Conservative Professors and Students Are Beating CA Community Colleges in Court

UP NEXT

Thousands of University of California Workers Go on 2-Day Strike Over Wages, Staff Shortages

Fresno State Becomes Bowl Eligible, Defeats Colorado State on Senior Night

6 hours ago

After Fresno Visit, Newsom Announces $24.7M Taxpayer-Funded Apprenticeship Program

8 hours ago

How Will Merced County Fund Public Safety After Measure R’s Failure?

8 hours ago

As Atmospheric River Soaks California, Farmworkers Await Flood Aid Promised in 2023

10 hours ago

Sacramento Region Gained People but Flubbed Economic Opportunities Over 50 Years

10 hours ago

Nations at UN Climate Talks Agree on $300B a Year for Poor Countries in a Compromise Deal

22 hours ago

What to Know About Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Trump’s Pick for Labor Secretary

1 day ago

What to Know About Scott Turner, Trump’s Pick for Housing Secretary

1 day ago

Trump Taps Investor Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary

1 day ago

NATO Head and Trump Meet in Florida for Talks on Global Security

1 day ago

Augillard, Douglas Lead the Way as Bulldogs Rally Past Long Beach State

LONG BEACH — Amar Augillard led Fresno State with 25 points and David Douglas Jr. made a go-ahead 3-pointer with 42 seconds left as the Bull...

5 hours ago

5 hours ago

Augillard, Douglas Lead the Way as Bulldogs Rally Past Long Beach State

5 hours ago

Israel Strikes Without Warning in Beirut, Kills at Least 15 as Cease-Fire Sought

5 hours ago

Trump Taps Rollins as Ag Chief in Final Cabinet Pick

6 hours ago

Fresno State Becomes Bowl Eligible, Defeats Colorado State on Senior Night

8 hours ago

After Fresno Visit, Newsom Announces $24.7M Taxpayer-Funded Apprenticeship Program

8 hours ago

How Will Merced County Fund Public Safety After Measure R’s Failure?

10 hours ago

As Atmospheric River Soaks California, Farmworkers Await Flood Aid Promised in 2023

10 hours ago

Sacramento Region Gained People but Flubbed Economic Opportunities Over 50 Years

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend