Campaign Action
On Sunday, July 28, 19-year-old Santino William Legan opened fire into a seemingly random crowd of people at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California. He shot and killed 6-year-old Stephen Romero, 13-year-old Keyla Allison Salazar, and 25-year-old Trevor Deon Irby. He wounded at least 13 others. Legan used a gun—reported as an assault-style rifle—legally purchased in Nevada. Police initially reported that three police officers (already on the scene to patrol the event) fatally shot Legan, but new reports from the medical examiner’s office contradict that claim. According to the medical examiner, the gunman died by suicide. Specifically, a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
In a news conference on Friday, Gilroy Police Chief Scot Smithee relayed the findings from the medical examiner’s office. "It appears now ... that once he was down that he was able to get a round off and he shot himself,” Smithee said. "I do know that the suspect was hit multiple times by the rounds that our officers fired, which put him down.”
The police chief also stressed that when three officers approached the area, “the suspect immediately changed his fire from the crowd toward the officers."
"In my mind it changes nothing," Smithee said about the updated cause of death. "The officers still got there fast, they engaged him fast, they drew his fire and they eliminated the threat. Whether he fired that final shot or not is — in my mind changes nothing." He noted that he didn’t know how many times the three officers fired, nor how many times Smithee had been shot.
John F. Bennett, FBI Special Agent in Charge of the San Francisco field office affirmed the shooter’s motive is still unknown. On Thursday, he said that it “doesn’t seem clear that he was targeting any particular group.”
That said, we do know that white supremacist materials have been discovered at Legan’s home, as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle. The Chronicle reports that the search warrant doesn’t mention white supremacist materials found by the FBI, but that anonymous federal sources confirm that texts on both “white supremacy and radical Islam” were found in Legan’s Nevada home. In addition, they found a bulletproof vest, a gas mask, and (empty) ammunition boxes.
Relatedly, reports have also come in that Legan had been active on social media. His posts, among other things, include telling people to read Might is Right, a racist book from the 1800s.
On the scene, Jack Van Breen, (who was on stage with his band, Tin Man), reported that he heard someone yelling at the shooter, asking why he was doing this. As reported by the Associated Press, the shooter replied, "Because I'm really angry."