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LAST UPDATE | 29 Jul 2019
A GUNMAN KILLED three people, including a six-year-old boy, at a food festival in California before being shot dead by police, in the latest chapter of America’s epidemic of gun violence.
The shooter broke into the Gilroy Garlic Festival by cutting a fence and began firing at random, local police said, confirming that 15 other festival-goers had been wounded.
Video footage showed people fleeing in terror as rifle rounds rang out at one of the largest food events in the country, which attracts around 100,000 each year to the city of Gilroy, 130 kilometres southeast of San Francisco.
The shooter has been identified as a 19-year-old man named Santino William Legan, CBS News reported.
Local police chief Scot Smithee said his officers, who confronted the assailant less than a minute after the alarm was raised, were searching for a possible second suspect.
The grandmother of six-year-old Stephen Romero said he was shot while attending the event with his mother and other grandmother.
Describing her grandson as “always kind, happy and… playful,” Maribel Romero told ABC7 News Stephen had died by the time she arrived at hospital.
President Donald Trump paid tribute to the victims at an event at the White House.
“While families were spending time at a local festival, a wicked murderer opened fire and killed three innocent citizens, including a young child,” Trump said.
We grieve for their families and ask that god comfort them.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose district covers most of San Francisco, spoke of the survivors’ “tough road ahead” and called for action to end gun violence.
“Every day the Senate refuses to act is a stain on the conscience of our nation,” she said.
‘Random’ shooting
A witness named Julissa Contreras told NBC a white man in his 30s armed with a rifle opened fire indiscriminately.
“I could see him shooting in just every direction. He wasn’t aiming at anyone specifically. It was just left to right, right to left,” Contreras said, according to NBC.
“He definitely was prepared for what he was doing,” she said.
Smithee said the suspect appeared to have entered the 50-acre festival site via a creek, using cutting equipment to breach the event’s perimeter.
Metal detectors and bag searches were in place as part of “very tight security,” he said.
No motive was known but the suspect’s shooting appeared “somewhat random,” Smithee added. The suspect used “some sort of a rifle,” he said.
Festival director Brian Bowe told reporters it was “horribly upsetting” that the attack happened on the third and final day of this year’s event in Gilroy, which he described as an “amazing… a tightly-knit community.”
“Our 4,000-plus local volunteers work so hard every year and to see this event end this way is just one of the most tragic and sad things that I’ve ever had to see,” Bowe said.
We feel so upset for those that are impacted – friends, families, neighbours. It’s just a horrible thing to experience.
‘Senseless violence’
The Mercury News reported that the shooting took place as the festival was winding down.
Stagehand Shawn Viaggi hit the ground after hearing “loud pops,” it said.
“I called out, ‘It’s a real gun, let’s get out of here,’ and we hid under the stage,” Viaggi said, according to the newspaper.
The Gilroy Garlic Festival features live entertainment including bands and cooking competitions as well as food and drink, according to organisers.
The family event is a major focal point for the small city of around 50,000.
Thirteen-year-old Evenny Reyes told the Mercury News that “we were just leaving and we saw a guy with a bandana wrapped around his leg because he got shot. And there were people on the ground, crying.”
“There was a little kid hurt on the ground. People were throwing tables and cutting fences to get out,” said Reyes.
Mass shootings are a frequent occurrence in the US, but despite the scale of the gun violence problem, efforts to address it legislatively have largely stalled at the federal level.
With reporting from - © AFP 2019.
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Almost twice the numbers dying from suicide as die on the roads. This is at national crisis level at this stage and needs to be tackled with the same amount of resources that have been put at the disposal of the road safety campaigns.
I have to agree. This is a national emergency.
Every life lost is a tragedy.
No surprise here. One other issue is that you cannot even do voluntary work because you’ll lose your social welfare if you do as “you are not available for interview or to take up full time employment”. Just goes to show the idiocy of the Political Institutions / Department Of Social Welfare. If you were doing voluntary work and living on the €188 a week, would you continue to that if offered a full time job? I know that if I was called to an interview I would tell the voluntary organisation that I cannot make it in as I have an interview and if I got the job I would take it and leave the voluntary work.
Voluntary work will help keep people sane and motivated to look for work, otherwise people will stay at home get demoralised and think what’s the point in even looking for a job. People think that there are a lot of people are on welfare because they “like it”. RUBBISH! I’d like the politicians to live on social welfare benefits for a month and to carry out all the strings that go with it and then justify how they can say it is a “comfortable lifestyle”
There is a form to complete, and if approved ie a reputable voluntary organisation is essential, you can do voluntary work – I do :).
Voluntary work is just that and if you volunteer and at the start explain if an interview comes up you are attending then that is appreciated and understood. And your skills will be much appreciated and you will keep your work skills up to date, motivate yourself and give back to the community – go for it CSEC Bio? If you want to volunteer for Sea Shepherd just let me know, happy to have you on board.
who on earth keeps thumbing comments down?. if I find out who they are they will be terminated.
Just ignore them.
Even if every banker & politician was made to read that report I wonder just how much they would really care. Peoples lives seem to matter less and less.
I personally know of 5 individuals, young men, who were in construction and were caught where they owed the supplier for materials and the developers refused to pay them anything, they were left with massive bills and lost of pressure from the suppliers. The individuals could not take legal action against the developers because of this NAMA thing ! and every one of the individuals took their own lives, leaving young families, parents, siblings, wives, girlfriends, friends, neightbours and community devestated.
And the Government has just cut spending on Suicide assistance ? WHY ?
sad the people at the top never cared never did nor never will i highllighted this last week in the lenihan article and in it lies some of their decision making bullshit for the ordinary people how much more can a race of people take without revolting something got to give
Lenihan gets a Kings funeral while those driven to suicide rarely even get a mention in the media. Its a tragedy.
have your say