Gilroy festival shooter died of self-inflicted gunshot wound, coroner says

The police chief said officers' fire took the gunman down. "They engaged him fast, they drew his fire and they eliminated the threat."

Aug. 2, 2019, 9:58 PM EDT
By Phil Helsel

The gunman who killed three people at a California food festival died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the medical examiner’s office said Friday.

Gilroy police had said that three of its police officers fatally shot the gunman, 19-year-old Santino William Legan, after he opened fire on a crowd at the annual Gilroy Garlic Festival on Sunday, killing three people and wounding others in what appears to be a random attack.

Gilroy Police Chief Scot Smithee said at a news conference Friday that the medical examiner’s office ruling does not change the fact that the officers fired at the gunman and that the suspect was struck before he apparently took his own life.

"I do know that the suspect was hit multiple times by the rounds that our officers fired, which put him down," Smithee said.

"It appears now ... that once he was down that he was able to get a round off and he shot himself, and it sounds like that round was to the head," the police chief said.

-snip-