Tag Archives: gunman dead

Mass shooting at California food festival, gunman killed, police hunt for associate

People look on from near the scene of a mass shooting during the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California, U.S. July 28, 2019. REUTERS/Chris Smead.

By Chris Smead

GILROY, Calif. (Reuters) – California police were searching on Monday for a suspected accomplice of the gunman who killed three people, including a 6-year-old boy, in a mass shooting at a food festival south of San Francisco.

The gunman was shot dead by police officers within minutes of opening fire early on Sunday evening at the three-day Gilroy Garlic Festival, about 30 miles (48 km) southeast of the city of San Jose.

He was identified as Santino William Legan, 19, according to CBS News and NBC News, both citing unnamed law enforcement officials. The Gilroy police department declined to confirm the reports but planned to hold a news briefing later on Monday morning.

Among those killed was a 6-year-old boy, according to news reports. Fifteen people were injured, but it was unclear how many were shot or otherwise hurt in the crush of bystanders trying to flee, according to police. One person was in critical condition, a hospital spokeswoman said.

President Donald Trump described the gunman as a “wicked murderer” and asked people to pray for the victims during an event at the White House.

“We grieve for their families, and we ask that God will comfort them with his overflowing mercy and grace,” he said.

A second suspect “was involved in some way, we just don’t know in what way,” Gilroy Police Chief Scot Smithee said late on Sunday, without giving further details.

“We have no idea of a motive,” he said.

Police recovered a rifle at the scene, Smithee said.

The gunman cut through a fence to evade metal detectors and other security at the festival entrance, police said.

Legan, the teenager identified in news reports as the gunman, appeared to post a photograph from the festival on his Instagram account shortly before the shooting accompanied by disgruntled captions. The account only appeared to be a few days old, and was deactivated at some point on Monday morning.

“Ayyy garlic festival time,” he wrote in the caption to the picture of people walking through the festival grounds. “Come get wasted on overpriced shit.”

Another photograph posted on Sunday showed a sign warning of a high danger of forest fires. Its caption urged people to read “Might is Right,” a racist and sexist treatise written by the pseudonymous author Ragnar Redbeard in the late 19th century. “Why overcrowd towns and pave more open space to make room for hordes of mestizos and Silicon Valley white twats?” the caption continued.

Footage uploaded to social media showed festival attendees scattering in fear and confusion as loud popping sounds could be heard in the background.

“What’s going on?” a woman can be heard asking on one video. “Who’d shoot up a garlic festival?”

‘THROWING TABLES’ TO GET OUT

One of the victims was identified by his grandmother as Stephen Romero in an interview with ABC7 News. Maribel Romero described her 6-year-old grandson as “a really loving boy.”

Her daughter-in-law and the boy’s other grandmother were also being treated in a hospital for gunshot wounds, she said. “I want justice for my grandson,” she said.

Evenny Reyes, 13, told the San Jose Mercury News that at first, she thought the gunfire was fireworks but then saw someone with a wounded leg.

“We were just leaving and we saw a guy with a bandana wrapped around his leg because he got shot,” Reyes told the newspaper. “There was a little kid hurt on the ground. People were throwing tables and cutting fences to get out.”

Maximo Rocha, a volunteer with the Gilroy Browns youth football team, said he saw many people on the ground, but could not be sure how many were shot.

He told NBC Bay Area that “quite a few” were injured, “because I helped a few.”

One video posted on Twitter showed a blood-spattered woman sitting in the back of a semi-trailer and telling a man she had been shot in the hand.

Founded in 1979, the Gilroy Garlic Festival is an annual event run by volunteers and held outdoors at Christmas Hill Park.

Weapons of any kind are prohibited, according to the event’s website, which also said anyone wearing clothing or paraphernalia indicating membership in a gang, including a motorcycle club, would be refused entry.

“I want to express my extreme shock and sadness about what’s happened today,” Gilroy Mayor Roland Velasco said at a late-night news conference. “I would ask for the thoughts and prayers of the community as our Gilroy police officers continue to investigate this tragic and senseless crime.”

(Additional reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California, Rich McKay in Atlanta, and Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky, Nick Zieminski and Jonathan Oatis)

Maryland teen wounds two at school, dies after gunfight with officer

Emergency services and law enforcement vehicles are seen outside the Great Mills High School following a shooting on Tuesday morning in St. Mary's County, Maryland, U.S., March 20, 2018. REUTERS/Sait Serkan Gurbuz

By Ian Simpson

GREAT MILLS, Md. (Reuters) – A 17-year-old student shot and critically wounded two fellow students at a Maryland high school on Tuesday morning before dying after a gunfight with a campus security officer, a law enforcement official said.

The shooting, which came amid a renewed national debate over gun violence following last month’s Florida high school massacre, occurred just before 8 a.m. (1200 GMT) at Great Mills High School in St. Mary’s County, about 70 miles (110 km) south of Washington.

The 16-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy who were wounded were taken to hospitals, county Sheriff Timothy Cameron said. The girl was in intensive care with life-threatening critical injuries, while the boy was in good condition, the sheriff said.

The gunman was identified as Austin Wyatt Rollins, and Cameron said there was “an indication” of a prior relationship between him and the female student, though he added that was still under investigation.

The latest in a long string of deadly shootings at U.S. schools and colleges took place a little more than a month after 17 students and educators were shot dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

That massacre sparked a new student movement against gun violence, including a national school walkout last week that included some Great Mills students. It occurred just days before a planned Saturday march in Washington calling for new restrictions on guns.

“We recently had a protest about school violence last week, and now this has happened,” said Kameron Norwood, a 16-year-old sophomore, as he and other students who had been transported to another nearby high school waited to be picked up by relatives.

Sheriff Cameron said Rollins pulled out a Glock semiautomatic handgun around 7:55 a.m. (1155 GMT) in a hallway and shot the students.

The attack, which lasted less than a minute, ended after the school resource officer, Deputy 1st Class Sheriff Blaine Gaskill, ran inside the building and confronted Rollins, with both firing a single shot almost simultaneously.

The officer was not harmed, Cameron said. Rollins was confirmed dead at 10:41 a.m. (1441 GMT) after being taken to a hospital.

The incident appeared to be one of the only instances in which a school resource officer, typically a sworn law enforcement member, was able to intercede in the midst of an active shooting.

In one example, in Arapahoe County, Colorado, a school resource officer was credited with helping to end a 2013 fatal high school shooting after he approached the gunman’s position in the library. The shooter, a student, took his own life.

An armed school resource officer had also been on the campus of Stoneman Douglas at the time of that shooting, and was criticized for failing to stop the gunman, who was armed with an AR-15 assault-style rifle. The officer, who resigned, said he had not been sure where the gunfire was coming from.

U.S. President Donald Trump and the National Rifle Association have proposed arming teachers trained in firearms use to combat the threat of school shootings, while gun safety advocates have demanded a ban on semiautomatic rifles, among other laws.

More than 29,000 public schools in the United States, or roughly 30 percent, reported having at least one full- or part-time school resource officer in 2013, according to a 2015 survey by the National Center for Education Statistics.

Great Mills High School senior Wayne Waul (2nd L) and his mother Jill Ryan (4th L) leave Leonardtown High School in Leonardtown, Maryland, U.S., March 20, 2018. Great Mills students and parents reunited at Lenoardtown after the shooting at their school. REUTERS/Sait Serkan Gurbuz

Great Mills High School senior Wayne Waul (2nd L) and his mother Jill Ryan (4th L) leave Leonardtown High School in Leonardtown, Maryland, U.S., March 20, 2018. Great Mills students and parents reunited at Lenoardtown after the shooting at their school. REUTERS/Sait Serkan Gurbuz

‘WHY US?’

Rollins was a fan of the Dallas Cowboys football team and NASCAR racing, according to his Facebook page, where he also “liked” the sort of tastes typical of an American teenager: McDonald’s, Wrangler jeans, the “Transformers” movie and Sour Patch Kids candy. He appeared several times on the school’s honor and merit rolls for good grades, according to lists published in a local newspaper.

Parkland students and Great Mills students exchanged supportive messages on Twitter following Tuesday’s shooting.

“We are here for you, students of Great Mills, together we can stop this from ever happening again,” tweeted Emma Gonzalez, a senior at Stoneman Douglas High School who survived last month’s rampage.

“You never think it’ll be your school and then it is,” posted Mollie Davis, who identified herself as a student at the school and tweeted during the lockdown. “Great Mills is a wonderful school and somewhere I am proud to go. Why us?”

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen, Gina Cherelus and Elizabeth Diltz in New York; writing by Joseph Ax; editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis)