Gilroy Garlic Festival gunman was shot less than a minute after shooting began
GILROY, Calif.-When the shooting started Sunday at the garlic festival, Gilroy police officers were patrolling the event.
Three officers began shooting at the gunman in less than a minute, Gilroy Police Chief Scot Smithee said Monday at a news conference, “despite the fact that they were outgunned, with their handguns, against a rifle.”
“We had thousands of people there in a very small area,” Smithee said, his ears tearing up a little. “It could have gotten so much worse, so fast. I’m really proud that they got there as quickly as they did. There absolutely would have been more bloodshed. With the number of people in the small area they were in, I think it’s very, very fortunate that they were able to engage him as quickly as they did,” he added.
Gilroy Mayor Roland Velasco said it “takes remarkable bravery to run to a shooting when the natural reaction for all of us is to run away.”
Gilroy Mayor Roland Velasco said it “takes remarkable bravery to run to a shooting when the natural reaction for all of us is to run away.”
The famed festival was winding down when the gunfire broke out at 5:30 p.m. Authorities have said 19-year-old Santino William Legan cut through a fence at the back of the park where the festival took place to avoid the security and metal detectors.
The shooting killed a 6-year-old boy, a 13-year-old girl and a man in his 20s, Smithee said.
A number of roads remained closed Monday in Gilroy as 30 law enforcement officials worked to gather evidence across a crime scene that spans “many, many acres,” said Craig Fair, deputy special agent in charge at the FBI.
“It’s done very slowly, it’s done very methodically,” Fair said. “It’s done for a reason, should we have to use that evidence for prosecution later on.”
