Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting

On July 28, 2019, the third and final day of the 41st annual Gilroy Garlic Festival at Christmas Hill Park in Gilroy, California, a gunman opened fire on festival-goers shortly before the event's scheduled 6:00 p.m. closing. The Gilroy Garlic Festival was one of the nation's best-known food festivals, typically drawing 80,000 to 100,000 visitors and serving as Gilroy's top fundraising event for local nonprofits.

The gunman entered the festival grounds by cutting through a wire fence along Uvas Creek using bolt cutters, bypassing security screening. He was armed with a WASR-10 semi-automatic rifle, a Romanian variant of the AK-47, fitted with a 75-round drum magazine, and was wearing a bulletproof vest while carrying five additional 40-round magazines. He fired 39 rounds near an inflatable slide in the food area. Witnesses described him as a white man in a green shirt with a grayish handkerchief around his neck, and said he appeared to be firing at random. A witness reported that when someone shouted, "Why are you doing this?" the gunman replied, "Because I'm really angry."

Police officers already present at the festival engaged the gunman within about a minute of the first shots, firing 18 rounds and striking him multiple times. The Santa Clara County coroner later determined that the gunman died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, inflicted after he had already been shot by officers. Three officers who fired their weapons were placed on administrative leave per standard procedure.

The three people killed were Stephen Romero, age 6; Keyla Salazar, age 13; and Trevor Deon Irby, age 25, all struck by single gunshots to the torso. Seventeen others were wounded; local hospitals treated 19 patients in total, including the gunman, ranging in age from 12 to 69.

The gunman was identified as Santino William Legan, a 19-year-old who had grown up in Gilroy but was living in Walker Lake, Nevada, at the time of the shooting. He had purchased the rifle legally in Nevada on July 9, 2019, though such weapons are banned in California. An Instagram account matching his description posted messages on the day of the shooting referencing "hordes of mestizos and Silicon Valley white twats" and recommending a proto-fascist manifesto. Investigators searching his belongings found a bulletproof vest, a gas mask, empty ammunition boxes, and gun literature, as well as digital storage devices.

As of 2020, authorities had not determined a definitive motive. Investigators found Legan possessed both left-wing and right-wing literature, including material on white supremacy and Islamic extremism, and had compiled a list of potential targets including religious organizations, courthouses, and federal and political buildings, prompting the FBI to open a domestic terrorism investigation. In March 2020, the Santa Clara County district attorney's office released a report finding that law enforcement's actions in the shooting were "unquestionably lawful and justified."

The shooting prompted responses from public officials including President Donald Trump, Senator Kamala Harris, and Governor Gavin Newsom, and drew commentary from advocacy organizations. In January 2020, the Gilroy Strong Resilience Center opened to support survivors.