GILROY, Calif. — An idyllic image of a beautiful and family-oriented city in Gilroy was shattered Sunday evening when a gunman opened fire at the Gilroy Garlic Festival.
The gunman, who police say was identified as 19-year-old Santino William Legan, killed two children, an adult and injured at least 19 other people in the city of Gilroy, a city of only 58,000 people. Officers shot and killed Legan at the festival.
“Oh my God, it’s happening in our backyard,” was Stephanie Blanco’s initial reaction to reports about the shooting. “This is something you watch on the news happening somewhere else,” she said.
Blanco, 40, said finding out that one of the victims was six-year-old Stephen Romero hit home because she has a daughter of the same age.
“I moved here because I wanted to give my daughter a family setting,” Blanco said. “I didn’t want her to grow up in a busy town where there were a lot of guns, drugs and violence. I didn’t want my daughter to know this.”
Abraham Acosta, 61, grew up in Gilroy. He was also struck by Romero’s death.
“When I heard about the innocent 6-year-old – his life barely began,” Acosta said. “That’s the most precious thing there is – life. And he took that away from that little boy.”
He was surprised that the shooting happened in his “small, peaceful” community.
“They started the Garlic Festival for families," Acosta said. "But right off the back people said, ‘I don’t want to go to that festival anymore. I don’t want to get shot.’”
Gilroy is the latest California city to experience a mass shooting. On April 27, a 19-year-old gunman killed a woman and injured three other people after opening fire inside the Congregation Chabad in Poway. Less than a year ago, a Marine veteran shot and killed 12 people before killing himself at Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks.
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A 13-year-old girl and a man in his 20s were also killed in the Garlic Festival shooting.
“There are a lot of people who do this to innocent people. These are innocent, young lives. It’s not a good thing,” Acosta said.
Blanco said her 6-year-old daughter will start her first year of school soon and she worries about the school conducting active shooter drills.
“I don’t want her to go through an active shooter drill. I would hope it was an earthquake drill or a fire drill. But it seems like those are less likely nowadays,” she said.
Blanco said she wonders how someone could walk into a family-friendly festival with a gun and questioned whether upcoming family events will be safe enough to attend.
“This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to Gilroy. That’s ever happened in Santa Clara County,” Blanco said.
Acosta, whose family moved to Gilroy in the late 50s, said the city is no longer the small agricultural town he grew up in.
He said Gilroy has become an attractive place to live for those who want to escape city life in San Francisco and Oakland. It’s a change he’s witnessed first hand as a heavy machine operator working on new housing construction sites, which includes one near Christmas Hill Park where the Garlic Festival was held.
“Because of the Garlic Festival, more people are coming in town. They come here and see it’s a nice place,” he said. “Because of the demand in real estate, agriculture is going out and houses are going up.”
Acosta said he worries about what’s to come.
“I thank the Lord that I’ve been blessed, but I fear for the future.