Gunman shot and killed himself, coroner rules
The 19yearold gunman who killed three people at the Gilroy Garlic Festival died of a selfinflicted gunshot wound to the head, not at the hands of Gilroy police, the Santa Clara County coroner’s office ruled Friday.
“The cause (of death) was an intraoral gunshot wound to the head and the manner is suicide,” said Nicole Lopez, a specialist in the coroner’s office.
The coroner’s finding differs with how police characterized Santino Legan’s death during the five days since the shooting. Gilroy Police Chief Scot Smithee had announced that the gunman was killed by three Gilroy police officers about a minute after he opened fire on festivalgoers.
On Friday afternoon, Smithee held a news conference to go over details of Legan’s death in
Local and federal police continue the investigation at Christmas Hill Park in Gilroy, the day after a gunman opened fire at the Garlic Festival, killing three people.
light of the coroner’s determination. He said the officers engaged Legan, began shooting at him, and he returned fire. Legan fell, and, based on the coroner’s finding, then turned the gun upon himself.
“Three officers shot at the suspect, striking him multiple times,” Smithee said. “The suspect went down to the ground, still had the rifle with him and apparently the suspect was able to get off one more shot and that was a shot to the head.I don’t think that changes anything about the heroics of our officers.”
Smithee said the officers did not realize that the suspect had shot himself.
At a news conference on Monday, Smithee had said, “Officers were in that area and engaged the suspect in less than a minute. The suspect was shot and killed.”
Less than three weeks before the deadly shooting, Legan bought the WASR10 semiautomatic rifle that killed three people — 6yearold Stephen Romero, 13yearold Keyla Salazar and 25yearold Trevor Irby — at a Nevada home business called Big Mikes Gun & Ammo in Fallon (Churchill County). The firearm was legal to own in Nevada, but Legan broke the law by taking it into California, where it falls into the state’s assault weapons ban, a federal law enforcement official told The Chronicle earlier this week.
Detectives with the FBI were still working to determine a potential motive or ideology that may have fueled the shooting. Behavioral analysts with the FBI are “holistically” reviewing physical evidence and Legan’s digital footprint, said FBI Special Agent in Charge John Bennett.
While a search of Legan’s Nevada apartment uncovered reading materials on white supremacy and “radical Islam,” according to federal law enforcement officials, Bennett said those materials are not enough to determine a particular ideological leaning or motivation.
Bennett said at a Thursday news conference that, based on the victims of the shooting, it appears the deadly attack was “random.” “It doesn’t seem clear that he was targeting any particular group,” Bennett said.
On Friday, Smithee insisted that the coroner’s findings did not contradict his earlier account and that he “wanted to make sure” that the apparently conflicting narratives were “not misconstrued in any way.”
He added that authorities “do not have absolute information” pending the release of the coroner’s entire report. Chronicle staff writers Michael
Cabanatuan and Lauren Hernández contrubuted to this
report.