Crime

California Garlic Festival Mass Shooter Identified as Manhunt Continues for Possible Accomplice

Three people were killed and 15 people were injured when a gunman opened fire at a food festival in Northern California

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Published on July 29, 2019 10:55 AM

Gilroy Garlic festival shooting — Photo: Josie Lepe/AP/Shutterstock

The gunman who killed three people and injured 15 at a food festival in Northern California Sunday evening has been identified, PEOPLE confirms.

A source with knowledge of the investigation tells PEOPLE the suspected gunman is Santino William Legan, 19. Gilroy Police Chief Scot Smithee said in a press conference the shooter was originally from Gilroy.

At a press conference late Sunday evening, Smithee said shots rang out at 5:41 p.m. and that police fatally shot the suspect within a minute.

According to Smithee, the suspect — who used “an AK-47-type gun” and appeared to be shooting at random — appeared to gain entry to the event by cutting an opening in the fence bordering the parking area. Festival attendees, Smithee said, were subjected to security bag checks and metal detector wands when they entered the premises.

Smithee said police do not know the motive of the shooting, but multiple outlets have reported the shooter referenced a white supremacist book on his Instagram account just before the shooting.

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Police are still searching for a possible second suspect who was reported by some eyewitnesses, Smithee said, though he added Monday afternoon that police “really don’t know” if that second suspect exists.

Names of the victims were also not officially released by police, though local press identified 6-year-old Stephen Romero as one of the victims, citing the boy’s family members. Smithee said the other victims were a 13-year-old girl and a man in his 20s.

Stephen’sgrandmother, Maribel Romero, told ABC-7 that her grandson was a “kind, “happy,” and “playful” boy.

She said she was at home at the time of the shooting, but that Stephen had attended the festival with his mother and other grandmother — both of whom were also shot in the incident. They have been hospitalized, Romero said.

Gilroy is a city of about 50,000 people located 20 miles south of San Jose that draws 100,000 to the festival celebrating its claim as the “Garlic Capital of the World,” the Associated Press reports.

Updated by Susan Keating