Gunman in Gilroy Garlic festival, California shooting is identified as teenager who opened fire on crowds with an assault rifle because he was ‘really angry’,

The shooter killed three people including a six-year-old boy, a 13-year-old female victim, and a male victim in ‘his twenties,’ before being shot dead as police hunt for his ‘accomplice’

Fifteen people were also injured and many remain in various area hospitals 

The gunman was named on Monday as Santino William Legan, a 19-year-old male from a well known Gilroy area family

He was shot dead at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Northern California at 5.41pm Sunday 

Witnesses say he was dressed in army fatigues, had a handkerchief around his neck and had an assault rifle 

When asked why he was firing into the crowd, witnesses say he replied: ‘Because I’m really angry’ 

Police say he got into the festival by using bolt cutters to get through the metal fences surrounding it – The event, which attracts 100,000 every year to Gilroy [the garlic capital of the world], had metal detectors

Authorities believe the gunman had help and they are searching for his ‘accomplice’ 

‘Wicked Murderer’:  Santino William Legan, 19, killed three people, injured another 15 before police shot and killed him, when he smuggled himself into the venue of the Garlic [food] Festival in Gilroy, California and opened fire on attendees, on Sunday evening

Six-year-old Steven Romero, from San Jose, was among three killed when a gunman opened fire on the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Northern California on Sunday evening

The gunman from a shooting at a garlic festival in California on Sunday has been identified as 19-year-old Santino William Legan.
Legan shot and killed  three people, including a six-year-old boy, along with a thirteen year old girl.. The third victim is described as a male in his twenties.
Legan was named on Monday as police in Gilroy, where the shooting happened, continued to hunt for his accomplice.

Six-year-old Steven Romero [photo], and three other people, including the shooter were killed and at least 15 were injured during the attack at Christmas Hill Park in Gilroy

Law enforcement said at least one other person may have been involved in the shooting but that is unconfirmed. Witnesses at the scene said the shooter was wearing khaki shorts and a brown hat and carrying an AK-47 type assault rifle opened fire about 5:40 p.m. local time, 20 minutes before the festival’s 6 p.m. closing time. The rifle police said was legally purchased by Santino Legan in the Nevada area last month.
Gilroy Police Chief Scot Smithee said it is believed Legan cut through a fence to gain access to the event, which draws tens of thousands of people each year. Videos from the scene show panicked people running as dozens of shots ring out.
The Instagram account that was registered under his name had been deleted by the time he was named on Monday.
Santino Legan who was shot dead by police after firing his semi-automatic assault rifle into crowds at the Gilroy Garlic Festival, an annual event which attracts 100,000 people to the small town, is a Gilroy native and attended Gilroy High School.


An Instagram page attributed to Legan identifies him as being of Italian and Iranian descent. The family is well known in the Gilroy area.
His maternal grandfather, Ali Ashgar Vahabzdaeh, born in Iran later anglicized his name.to Allen O. Baylor  was an economics professor at the University of Texas, California Lutheran University and UCLA.
His paternal grandfather was a Santa Clara County supervisor, His Father Was a champion runner. The shooter’s own brother is a noted amateur boxer.
One of the page’s few posts said ““Ayyy garlic festival time. Come get wasted on overpriced s***.”
His last Instagram post, one  made days before the shooting and two posted on Sunday, shortly before the shooting states: “Ayyy garlic festival time. Come get wasted on overpriced shit.”
Legan also posted about a fringe white supremacist book written in 1890. Noted individualist anarchist, revisionist historian and Holocaust denier James J. Martin called, the book, “…one of the most incendiary works ever to be published anywhere.”
Quoting from the book in a post accompanied by a Smokey the Bear sign about fire danger he writes: “Read Might Is Right by Ragnar Redbeard. Why overcrowd towns and pave more open space to make room for hordes of mestizos and Silicon Valley white twats?”

People flee after gunman opens fire at Gilroy Garlic Festival: Video shows panicked attendees fleeing the park as gunfire erupts in the background, continuing for several minutes

‘We were 10 to 15 feet away from him. It was… how do I explain. There was like a pop and all of a sudden we just turned and we saw him standing there.
‘He was reloading his gun, he was putting another magazine in and he just opened fire.
‘He just started walking towards our booth.
‘We just ran. It was so fast,’ she said.
Several witnesses reported hearing popping noises and then seeing a white male in his 30s wearing military fatigues ‘indiscriminately’ spraying the crowd with bullets from a semi-automatic weapon for several minutes.
Candice Marquez, 51, a honey vendor at the festival, said she was just 10 feet from the shooter when he opened fire, and saw him reload a clip of ammunition.
Witnesses said the shooter, a white male was wearing a green vest and khaki pants, was ‘very quiet’ and didn’t call attention to himself before he started spraying the crowd with bullets.
He was walking like a police officer. Like he wanted to get stuff done
Festival worker who witnessed the shooting described the shooter’s actions as ‘very deliberate’ but said he didn’t seem to be targeting anyone. Two of her colleagues were shot in the attack, she added.
Another festival worker told NBC Bay Area: ‘He was walking like a police officer. Like he wanted to get stuff done.’
The shooting is the 246th mass shooting in the US this year. 

‘What’s going on?’ a woman can be heard asking in a clip. ‘Who’d shoot up a garlic festival?’
One video shows two bloodied victims lying on the ground, while another showed victims being treated inside a trailer.
On Sunday, Stephen’s grieving father Alberto shared photographs of him on social media on Sunday night and also gave interviews where he said he had his ‘whole life ahead of him’.
‘I want to be with him until I can put him in his resting spot, wherever that is. My son had his whole life to live, he was only six, that’s all I can say,’ he said.
Stephen’s other grandmother, who was not at the festival, told KRON: ‘This is really hard. There are no words to describe [it].
‘Because he was such a happy kid, you know. I don’t think it’s fair.’
One witness told NBC Bay Area he was headed out of the event when he felt a bullet wiz by his head and saw everyone running behind him.
A woman told the outlet she heard popping noises and then turned around to see a man who appeared to be reloading a semi-automatic weapon.
Another witness said the shooting took place between food tents and from a child’s play area.

The public was urged to stay away from the festival area and from Gavilan College if they were not immediately affected by the incident.
The three-day event is officially recognized by Guinness World Records as the World’s Largest Garlic Festival, attracting thousands of visitors each summer.
The festival is considered a ‘gun free zone’, and attendees say they were searched thoroughly before entering the park. Money raised during the event is donated to charity.
This year’s 41st annual festival featured a giant outdoor kitchen and ‘Pyro Chefs’ creating flame shows while cooking garlic calamari and scampi alongside booths serving pasta, pepper steak sandwiches at ‘Gourmet Alley’, the main food area.
There were also three stages with live entertainment, a wine garden, a cocktail booth and a children’s play area.