GILROY, Calif. -- Authorities on Monday were searching for answers to why a 19-year-old opened fire on a popular food festival less than a mile from his parents' home in California, killing two children and a young man.
But Gilroy Police Chief Scot Smithee said he believes that many more people would have died if officers patrolling the event had not stopped the gunman so quickly.
"Even though they were outgunned, with handguns against a rifle, those three officers were able to fatally wound that suspect," Smithee said. "It could have gone so much worse so fast."
He said Santino William Legan cut through a fence and appeared to randomly target people with an "assault-type rifle" Sunday afternoon, the end of the three-day Gilroy Garlic Festival that attracts about 100,000 people to the city known as the "Garlic Capital of the World."
Police responded in less than a minute, and Legan turned his gun on them, Smithee said. The officers fired back and killed Legan, who had legally purchased the weapon this month in Nevada, where his last address is listed.
"I can't tell you how proud I am of the officers who were able to engage this guy as quickly as they did," the police chief said. "We had thousands of people there. ... There absolutely would have been more bloodshed."
Legan's motive wasn't known, Smithee said.
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"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.
On Monday, the FBI said it has deployed an evidence-recovery team of about 30 people to help scour the sprawling crime scene and mark and map evidence. The bureau is also trying to help investigators determine whether the attacker was driven by a specific ideology.
"Our pre-eminent and principal concern at this point is motivation, ideological leanings," Craig Fair, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's San Francisco office, said at a news briefing. "Was he affiliated with anyone or any group? It still has to be ruled out, still has to be determined, at this point."
Legan posted two photos on Instagram not long before the attack that also injured 12 people.
One photo depicted Smokey the Bear in front of a "fire danger" sign, with a caption that said to read the 19th-century book Might is Right, a work that claims race determines behavior and that is popular among white nationalists and far-right extremist groups.
Legan's since-deleted Instagram account says he is Italian and Iranian. Minutes before the shooting, he had posted a photo from the festival saying, "Ayyy garlic festival time" and "come get wasted on overpriced [stuff]."
The festival in the agricultural city of 50,000 people, about 80 miles southeast of San Francisco, had security that required people to pass through metal detectors and have their bags searched.
Some witnesses reported a second suspect, Smithee said, but it was unclear whether that person was armed or just helped in some way. A manhunt stretched into Monday.
The shooting killed 6-year-old Stephen Romero; a 13-year-old girl; and Trevor Irby, who was in his 20s, authorities and family members said.
"My son had his whole life to live, and he was only 6," Alberto Romero told the San Francisco Bay Area news station KNTV. "That's all I can say." Romero's wife and mother-in-law were wounded.
Stephen Romero's uncle, Noe Romero, said his nephew loved Batman and playing with his cousins on a tire swing outside his grandparents' house in San Jose, Calif.
"Let's put it this way, he's been the only boy" out of the grandchildren on his father's side of the family, Noe Romero said. "That's our boy."
Keuka College said Irby was a biology major who graduated in 2017 from the school in upstate New York.
Officials didn't release the name of the girl who died.
More than a dozen wounded people were taken to multiple hospitals, and their conditions ranged from fair to critical, with some undergoing surgery. At least five have been released.
Police searched the two-story home of Legan's family less than a mile from the garlic festival and a dusty car parked outside. Officers left the house Monday with paper bags.
Jan Dickson, a neighbor across the street, said Legan had not lived there for at least a year and that tactical officers went to the home Sunday night. She called the Legans "a nice, normal family."
"How do you cope with this? They have to deal with the fact that their son did this terrible thing and that he died," Dickson said.
At the festival, the band TinMan was starting an encore Sunday when the shooting started. Singer Jack van Breen said he saw a man wearing a green shirt and grayish handkerchief around his neck fire into the food area.
Van Breen, from nearby Santa Clara, said he heard someone shout: "Why are you doing this?" The reply: "Because I'm really angry."
Donna Carlson of Reno, Nev., said she was helping a friend at a jewelry booth when "all of a sudden it was 'pop, pop, pop.' And I said, 'I sure hope that's fireworks.'" She got on her hands and knees and hid behind a table until police told her it was safe to leave.
Video posted to social media showed people running as shots rang out.
Julissa Contreras said she was browsing the offerings at a barbecue tent with her father and her boyfriend, Mario Camargo, when she noticed a man emerging from behind a row of tents. He was dressed in a military-style outfit and holding what appeared to be an assault rifle, she said. Four loud cracks rang out in quick succession. The man was shooting "left to right and right to left," she said.
They dove for cover under a table, she said. Once they heard the gunfire stop, Contreras and Camargo each made a run for the entrance, eventually reuniting in the parking lot. Camargo said he saw two wounded people as he fled.
"One guy was able to talk. He was saying, 'Just go! Just go!'" Camargo recalled. "People were crying, screaming, running in different directions. It was complete pandemonium."
Contreras said there was one moment that she couldn't stop thinking about. When the gunfire broke out, she looked in the direction of the gunman and saw children fleeing an inflatable slide, all trying to squeeze through the same tiny exit.
"I'm never going to forget that image," she said.
Smithee and others said the shooting was especially tragic because it happened during an annual celebration to help community nonprofits.
"To have seen this event end this way, this day, is just one of the most tragic and sad things that I've ever had to see," Brian Bowe, the festival's executive director, said at the news conference. "We all feel so upset for those that are impacted -- friends, families, neighbors. It's just a horrible thing to experience, and we couldn't feel worse."
President Donald Trump condemned the "wicked murderer."
"We express our deepest sadness and sorrow for the families who lost a precious loved one in the horrific shooting last night in Gilroy, Calif.," Trump said before an event at the White House.
In a tweet, California Gov. Gavin Newsom called the bloodshed "nothing short of horrific" and said he was grateful for the police response.
Information for this article was contributed by Kathleen Ronayne, Mike Balsamo and Martha Mendoza of The Associated Press; by Faiz Siddiqui, Allyson Chiu, Meagan Flynn and Mark Berman of The Washington Post; and by Lauren Hepler, Amy Harmon and Richard A. Oppel Jr. of The New York Times.
A Section on 07/30/2019