Teen kills three children in latest US mass shooting
Los Angeles: A 19-year-old has been identified as the gunman in the latest mass shooting in the United States — a rampage that left three dead, including two children, and 12 other people wounded.
Santino William Legan was armed with an AK-47-type assault rifle when he opened fire at random Sunday at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California, authorities said, before being gunned down by police within one minute of launching the attack.
Law enforcement officials said Monday they have not established a motive for the killings.
But media reports said investigators were poring over Legan’s social media, including an Instagram account created four days ago in which he referenced a white supremacist book.
One message on the account posted shortly before the attack included a picture of people at the festival with the words “Ayyy garlic festival time Come get wasted on overpriced shit,” media reports said.
A second message featured a photo of Smokey the Bear with a sign that reads “Fire Danger High Today” alongside a reference to the white supremacist book “Right is Might” which promotes anarchy.
Gilroy police chief Scot Smithee said investigators were trying to confirm witness accounts of a second suspect who may have assisted Legan.
“We had reports on a potential second suspect but we don’t have confirmation that he fired and we are trying to determine who it is and what his role was,” Smithee told reporters at a news conference.
The dead include six-year-old Stephen Romero who was attending the festival with his mother and grandmother, who were wounded in the attack.
The two other victims were identified by US media as Keyla Salazar, 13, and Trevor Irby, a recent college graduate.
“My son had his whole life to live and he was only six,” Romero’s father, Alberto, told the NBC television station, adding that his son was shot in the back.
Those wounded include one person in critical condition and they range in age from 12 to 69, local media said.
The killings marked the latest chapter of America’s epidemic of gun violence, which has left nearly 300 people dead in mass shootings so far this year, according to Mass Shooting Tracker.
KV Online
