Outgunned officers kill festival shooter

Two children are among three killed, more than a dozen hurt.

‘It’s sort of a nightmare that you hope you never have to live in reality.’

Gilroy Police Chief Scot Smithee

GILROY, CALIF. — The late afternoon sun beat down on Julissa Contreras as she browsed the offerings at a barbecue food tent at the Gilroy Garlic Festival on Sunday with her father and her boyfriend.

Then, Contreras said she noticed a man emerging from behind a row of tents at the popular summertime event in Gilroy, California. He was dressed in a military-style outfit and holding what appeared to be an assault rifle, she told The Washington Post. Four loud cracks rang out in quick succession. The man was shooting “left to right and right to left,” she said.

“Some people immediately knew what was going on and saw the guy and ran,” Contreras said. “Some people were still sitting there unsure.”

Three people were killed in the shooting, among them two children, 6-year-old Stephen Romero and a 13-year-old girl whose name has not been released, authorities said. The third victim was Trevor Irby, a recent graduate of Keuka College in upstate New York. A dozen other people were injured.

“It’s sort of a nightmare that you hope you never have to live in reality,” Gilroy Police Chief Scot Smithee said.

The attacker has been identified as Santino William Legan, a 19-year-old from the area, Smithee said at a briefing Monday morning.

Smithee said police engaged Legan in a gunfight within a minute and killed him, praising the officers for confronting the attacker so quickly. He also noted that they were outgunned — wielding handguns against a shooter firing an assault-style rifle — and said that without their prompt actions, “there absolutely would have been more bloodshed.”

Attempts to reach Legan’s relatives were not immediately successful Monday.

So far, early evidence in the case does not suggest that the shooting was connected to international terrorism, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The official cautioned that investigators were still gathering evidence.

A shaken Smithee, speaking to reporters Monday morning, said that officials had not determined a possible motive for the shooting, warning that the investigation would be lengthy.

“It seems that this was a random act, but again, we’ve got a long way to go before we can come to a determination what his motivation was,” he said.

Police were searching for a possible second suspect in the case, Smithee said, although he added that it was unclear what role that person may have had or whether he or she was involved in shooting. Smithee said that police have heard multiple reports about the attacker having someone with him but that “different people gave different versions” of what they saw.

NOAH BERGER / ASSOCIATED PRESS FBI personnel pass a ticket booth at the Gilroy Garlic Festival on Monday, the morning after a gunman killed at least three people, including a 6-year-old boy, and wounded a dozen others. The gunman was shot and killed by police.