Gilroy Garlic Festival Shooting: Gunman, FBI Findings, and Memorial

The Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting occurred on July 28, 2019, when a 19-year-old gunman cut through a perimeter fence at Christmas Hill Park in Gilroy, California, and opened fire on the closing day of the annual food festival, killing three people and wounding at least 17 others before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police reached him within about a minute, and the FBI later opened a domestic terrorism investigation. Civil lawsuits, a victims’ compensation program, and a scaled-down revival of the festival in 2025 followed.

What Happened That Evening

The attack began at roughly 5:41 p.m. near the Vineyard Stage, where a band called Tin Man was performing.¹ Santino William Legan bypassed the festival’s security checkpoints by cutting a hole in a chain-link fence along a creek at the park’s edge.² He carried a WASR-10 semiautomatic rifle fitted with a 75-round drum magazine and multiple 40-round magazines.³

Legan walked through the grounds firing indiscriminately. Prosecutors later determined he fired at least 36 rounds at festivalgoers and police. Three Gilroy police officers stationed on-site, Detective Eric Cryar, Detective Robert Basuino, and Officer Hugo Del Moral, confronted him within a minute. When Legan turned his rifle on them, the officers returned fire and struck him.⁴

Police Chief Scot Smithee initially said officers had killed the gunman. The Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office later determined the fatal wound was self-inflicted, an intraoral gunshot; the officers’ shots had struck Legan and brought him to the ground before he killed himself.⁵ The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office later cleared all three officers, calling their use of force “unquestionably lawful and justified” and stating they “undoubtedly saved lives.”⁴

Who Was Killed and Wounded

Three people died in the attack:

Stephen Romero, 6, who was at the festival with his mother and grandmother; both were hospitalized.⁶
Keyla Salazar, 13, whom family described as “Sunshine.” She was shot while searching for relatives after the gunfire began.⁶
Trevor Irby, 25, a Keuka College biology graduate from New York who was at the festival with his girlfriend.⁶

At least 17 others were wounded or injured. Wendy Towner was identified as the first person shot; her partner, Francisco Aguilera, was also wounded. Brynn Ota Matthews and Gabriella Gaus, who were in a bounce house when the shooting started, were among those hit, and Matthews said she would carry a bullet lodged in her liver for the rest of her life.⁷ As of early August 2019, six victims remained hospitalized for gunshot wounds at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. Survivors who later sued reported lasting psychological injuries, including PTSD and survivor’s guilt.⁸

The Gunman and His Weapon

Legan, 19, was an American living in Nevada. He bought the WASR-10 rifle legally on July 9, 2019, at Big Mike’s Gun and Ammo in Fallon, Nevada, placing the order online, and had legally purchased a Remington 870 shotgun at a Reno shop on July 1; the shotgun was later found in his car at the festival.⁹

While the rifle purchase was legal in Nevada, bringing it into California was not. A federal law enforcement official said the weapon was “absolutely illegal to bring into California,” where it fell under the state’s assault weapons ban.⁹ California Attorney General Xavier Becerra confirmed the rifle could not be legally purchased in or imported into California, and the magazines Legan carried far exceeded the state’s 10-round limit.¹⁰

On the day of the attack, Legan posted a photo on Instagram urging followers to read Might Is Right, an 1896 book published under the pseudonym Ragnar Redbeard that has circulated for years in white supremacist and neo-Nazi online forums. The post also included slurs against mixed-race people and derogatory remarks about Silicon Valley workers.¹¹¹²

What the FBI Found

On August 6, 2019, the FBI formally opened a domestic terrorism investigation. John F. Bennett, special agent in charge of the San Francisco field office, said investigators had found a “target list” in Legan’s digital media that included religious institutions, federal buildings, courthouses, political organizations from both major parties, and the Gilroy Garlic Festival itself. The list did not identify specific individuals, and the FBI declined to name the targeted organizations while notifying them.¹³¹⁴

Near a creek at the festival, investigators recovered a bag containing a scope, a flashlight, a shovel, and additional magazines.¹⁵ At Legan’s Nevada residence, authorities seized three hard drives, three thumb drives, a flip phone, and a computer tower.¹⁶

The FBI said it could not point to a single driving ideology. Bennett described Legan as having a “fractured ideology” and said he appeared to have been “exploring violent ideologies” across the political spectrum, with materials at his homes that “ran the gamut from left to right.” No manifesto was recovered.¹⁷

How He Got In

Christmas Hill Park covers 50 acres, with trails, picnic areas, and natural boundaries. Legan bypassed the metal detectors and bag checks at official entry points by cutting through a chain-link fence along a creek at the park’s edge.² The festival did not have security cameras in place at the time. In the aftermath, law enforcement officials around California discussed surveillance cameras, uniformed perimeter patrols, and sturdier fencing at large outdoor gatherings.¹⁸

Lawsuits and Their Outcomes

In November 2019, the Scarlett Law Group filed suit on behalf of 12 victims and their families against the City of Gilroy, the Gilroy Garlic Festival Association, and First Alarm Security & Patrol, alleging inadequate security. In 2021, the legal team added Century Arms LLC, the manufacturer and distributor of the WASR-10, as a defendant, with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence joining the litigation.³

On November 14, 2023, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Frederick S. Chung granted summary judgment for the City of Gilroy, the Garlic Festival Association, and First Alarm Security, dismissing them from the case. The judge concluded the mass shooting was not a “reasonably foreseeable” risk and that evidence of a dangerous property condition was insufficient to warrant a trial. Judge Chung had separately quashed the complaint against Century Arms on November 7, 2023.¹⁹

The claim against Century Arms continued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont, where the company is based. In December 2024, a federal judge denied Century Arms’ motion to dismiss.²⁰ In September 2025, Vermont District Court Judge William K. Sessions III dismissed the case, citing a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that summer limiting gunmaker liability.²¹

Help for Victims

In September 2021, the California Victim Compensation Board received a grant of nearly $3.95 million from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office for Victims of Crime to assist those affected. As of that date, the board had compensated 666 victims and family members a total of more than $247,000 for income loss, medical care, and mental health treatment. A portion of the grant funded the Gilroy Strong Resiliency Center, which provides counseling and support programming for victims and first responders. Victims have until July 27, 2026, to file claims.²²

The Memorial and the Festival’s Return

A memorial designed by landscape architect Karen Aitken was installed at Christmas Hill Park in September 2019 as a temporary space, with a large palm tree, three flag-laden ropes, three large boulders for those killed, and a surrounding fence with 17 posts for the wounded. In 2020, the Gilroy City Council voted to make the memorial permanent. By 2023, weather and animal damage had taken a toll, and the council began weighing a more durable replacement, including proposals for a garden setting with a concrete monument, a bench, and smaller trees in place of the palm.²³

The festival went dark after 2019 and stayed closed through the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, the Gilroy Garlic Festival Association canceled the event for the “foreseeable future,” citing post-attack insurance costs estimated at $10 million.²⁴

It returned in July 2025 as a smaller event at Gilroy Gardens, with attendance capped at 3,000 per day, well below the roughly 30,000 daily visitors of past years. All 9,000 tickets sold out within hours.²⁴ Paul Nadeau, president of the Garlic Festival Association, said security included 20 on-duty police officers around the clock and a continuous internal security force.²⁵ The festival is scheduled for July 24 through 26, 2026, at the Hecker Pass Outdoor Events Center.²⁶

Keyla Salazar’s aunt, Katiuska Pimentel, said at the 2025 event: “For us it’s about remembering her and finding ways to honor her so she does not become a statistic, and people understand there are real lives that will never be the same.”²⁵

1
NPR. At Least 3 Killed in Shooting at Northern California Food Festival
2
ABC7 News. How the Gunman Entered the Festival
3
Brady United. Lawsuit Gilroy Garlic Festival Mass Shooting
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ABC News. Officers Cleared in Opening Fire on Mass Shooting Suspect at Gilroy
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NPR. Coroner Says Gilroy Festival Shooter Killed Himself, Contradicts Police Reports
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6ABC. Everything We Know About 3 Victims Killed at Gilroy Garlic Festival
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ABC30. Gilroy Shooting Injured Victims Thank Doctors for Saving Their Life
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Los Angeles Times. California-Nevada Border Gun Control
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NBC News. Gilroy Garlic Festival Gunman Referenced Might Is Right Manifesto Shortly Before Shooting
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ADL. Food Festival Shooter Promoted Obscure Social Darwinist Screed
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ABC News. FBI Opens Domestic Terrorism Investigation Into Gilroy Garlic Festival Shooting
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Los Angeles Times. Gilroy Shooting Motive Santino William Legan
17
Los Angeles Times. Gilroy Garlic Festival Shooting Domestic Terrorism Probe
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Gilroy Dispatch. Tentative Ruling Dismisses Organizers in Garlic Festival Shooting Lawsuit
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FindLaw. Salazar et al. v. Century Arms, Inc.
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Seven Days VT. Judge: Vermont Gunmaker Not Liable for Mass Shooting
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California Victim Compensation Board. California Victim Compensation Board Receives $3.9 Million to Help Victims of the 2019 Gilroy Garlic Festival Shooting
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San Jose Inside. Gilroy Plans Upgrades to Garlic Festival Shooting Memorial
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KQED. Gilroy Garlic Festival Makes Return Years After Shooting and Pandemic Pauses
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Gilroy Garlic Festival. Gilroy Garlic Festival Official Site