Victims: Families, friends devastated by loss of lives, including that of a 6yearold boy
Before he was shot to death Sunday at the Gilroy Garlic Festival, Stephen Romero was a puckish 6yearold boy with a bright smile.
His uncle called him “El Romantico,” remembering Stephen’s pressed buttondown shirts, his polished manners and his taste for sultry R&B ballads by his favorite pop artist, The Weeknd.
“He wouldn’t leave the house unless he had cologne on,” said the uncle, Noe Romero, standing in the driveway of Stephen’s home in a quiet area of East San Jose, where basketball hoops, baby toys and kids’ play structures littered the front yards.
The boy died at St. Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy, hours after he was shot in the back by a gunman who snuck in with an “AK47type” assault rifle, authorities said, and showered bullets into the crowd. Police said Santino William Legan, 19, allegedly fired the rifle that killed Stephen and two others at the festival.
The Santa Clara County Medical Examiner identified Stephen and 13yearold Keyla Salazar, also of San Jose as victims. The county did not release the name of the third victim, but Keuka Col
lege identified him as 25yearold Trevor Irby of Romulus, New York, a 2017 graduate who studied biology.
The gunman also injured 12 other people before police shot and killed him. Seven of the 12 people injured in the shooting were taken to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose; As of Monday afternoon, one patient had been discharged and one had been transferred to Stanford. The remaining patients’ conditions ranged from fair to critical, according to the medical center. The victims ranged in age from 12 to 69.
‘Very loving’ boy
The youngest victim was 6yearold Stephen. His father, Alberto Romero told reporters from NBC Bay Area that he had gotten word of the shooting while sitting at home Sunday, studying for a test and looking after Stephen’s older sister.
“I lost my son,” Alberto Romero told NBC Bay Area, his eyes downcast as he stood outside the emergency room at St. Louise on Sunday night.
“I don’t know what else to say. My son had his whole life to live. He was only six,” he added.
On Monday, Stephen’s home looked like the others on Torrance Avenue — a lowslung house with a tire swing and patio furniture. Relatives gathered there Monday morning, wearing black and wiping tears. One tidied the lawn while another sat on the porch, waiting for news to come.
Stephen’s mother and grandmother were also injured in the shooting. Stephen’s mother, Barbara Aguirre, was shot in the hand and stomach and taken to Stanford Medical Center, where doctors put her into a medically induced coma. She was in stable condition Monday, according to a hospital spokeswoman.
The boy’s grandmother was hit in the leg and left surgery early Monday morning at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, the boy’s uncle said.
Shortly after getting a call at 5:45 Sunday evening about the shooting, Noe Romero sped up to San Jose from his home in Madera (Fresno County).
When Romero arrived at his brother’s home, he saw a wading pool and a row of toy cars on their patio — the last things that his nephew played with Sunday before he was packed him into the car to drive to the event.
“Before the festival he was out here playing, but the poor little guy ends up going to the Gilroy Garlic Festival and ends up hurt,” Romero, 36, said between pings from his cell phone.
He pulled up photos of Stephen, roundfaced and flirty, eyes twinkling as he hugged cousins or posed for selfies. The family is large and closeknit — Romero recently took Stephen and Stephen’s older sister along with his own daughters to Six Flags Great America and Gilroy Gardens.
“Stephen was a very outgoing kid, very loving,” the uncle added. “He would have seen this act being very unfair to other kids.”
Friends of the Romero family set up a GoFundMe page on Monday to help with funeral expenses and other hardships. It raised more than $38,000 by Monday evening.
‘I can’t tell you how much pain we feel’
Family and friends of 13yearold Keyla Salazar were also reeling Sunday. They remembered how Keyla couldn’t wait for her 14th birthday, a week away.
If all went well — and if she cleaned her room and the family kitchen — she just might persuade her mom and stepdad that she deserved the golden retriever puppy she desperately wanted.
On Sunday afternoon, everyone was going to the Gilroy Garlic Festival. So Keyla woke up extra early to have enough time to scrub those rooms in the family’s home on McGinness Avenue in San Jose and to write her mom a special note when she was done:
“Now can we please buy a puppy?”
By afternoon, the family — Keyla, her two little sisters, her mom and stepdad — were off to Gilroy for a fun outing in the Santa Clara Valley.
And then there was chaos. Keyla and her stepfather, Lalo, were hit, and in the mayhem became separated from Keyla’s mom and sisters.
“My friend Lorena’s daughter was shot today at the Gilroy garlic Festival if anyone’s seen her pictured in blue Tshirt please let me know as of 9:30 she doesn’t know where she’s at...”
Maria Zelaya wrote that message Sunday night, desperately trying to locate Keyla, as Keyla’s mother, aunt Katiuska Pimentel, sisters and another family friend, Amy Bellido, visited hospital after hospital asking for her.
They learned that Keyla’s stepfather was at Stanford Hospital, one of a dozen people wounded at the festival. Lalo, identified only by his first name, had been shot in the arm.
After nine hours of terror, a phone call at 2:30 a.m. confirmed the worst.
“Unfortunately Kayla didn’t make it, please lift her family in prayers as they will need all the
support specially her mom,” Zelaya posted on Facebook in a final, tragic update.
Keyla’s father, Juan Salazar, was not there. On June 15, he expressed his love for Keyla and another daughter on Facebook.
“My treasures,” he wrote. “I love you. How you have grown. May God protect you for me all the time.”
In photos — the proud ones parents post on social media — Keyla offers a Mona Lisa smile beneath a pink mortar board. In another, she’s got a polkadot blouse and pigtails, and she and her dad are leaning, head to head, smiling.
That was the kind of kid Keyla was, Bellido said. Gentle, sweet and close with her family.
Keyla attended a nearby charter school, Pimentel said. Although she struggled in school, she tried hard and behaved well.
“I can’t tell you how much pain we feel, losing someone at such a young age when you see them having a future and going to college,” Pimentel said as she stood in the driveway of the family’s home.
Keyla would have turned 14 on Aug. 4.
Bellido and Pimentel said the family will fulfill her last wish and get that golden retriever puppy.
‘A really wonderful friend’
Trevor Irby, 25, was an athlete from a small town in the Finger Lakes region of New York, where news of his death has ricocheted from house to house.
Old friends from Romulus, a rural community in Seneca County, remember Irby’s dimpled smile and affable nature. In high school he played soccer, baseball and basketball, graduated in a class of 30 and made a lasting impression on just about everyone.
“He was a really wonderful friend,” said Paige McDonald, a former classmate who met Irby in third grade. The two kept in touch after he went on to study biology at Keuka College, which identified him as a victim.
Other friends remember Irby as a showman with a competitive streak and a big heart — the kind of person who could walk into a room and immediately become the center of attention.
“He just had that vibe that you could connect to him,” said Matt Hey, a college roommate who lived with Irby and two other friends in a large pink house.
Ben Schreiber, another member of the pink house crew, recalls marathon sessions of the fantasy video game League of Legends, followed by 4 a.m. trips to a nearby Dunkin’ Donuts.
Irby moved to Santa Cruz in January with his girlfriend, Sarah Warner, who was with him during the attack, though she wasn’t injured. He worked as a medical assistant at a nursing home and called his friends on the East Coast almost daily. The couple intended to move back to Rochester next year.
Schreiber was on the phone with Irby on Sunday night when he heard gunfire pop in the background, following by a piercing scream from Warner.
Moments later, Hey got a call from Irby’s phone. But there wasn’t a human voice on the other end, Hey said. He surmised that Irby was being pulled onto gurney at that point while medical workers did CPR.
“Our hearts go out to Trevor’s family and loved ones,” Keuka College president Amy Storey wrote in a statement Monday. “We are shocked that this latest episode of senseless gun violence resulted in the loss of one of our recent graduates.”
Storey said the college will hold a vigil “when the timing is appropriate.” In the meantime, Irby’s former housemates have set up a GoFundMe page for memorial expenses.