Gilroy shooting: FBI opens ‘domestic terrorism’ investigation into garlic festival attack

Teenage killer had ‘target list’ including religious groups and federal buildings, investigators say

Community members hold a vigil outside Gilroy City Hall (REUTERS)

A domestic terrorism investigation has been launched by the FBI after a shooting at a California food festival which claimed the lives of three people, including two children.

The decision was taken after investigators discovered gunman Santino William Legan kept a “target list” which included religious groups, federal buildings and sites linked to both major US political parties, officials said.

The 19-year-old cut through a fence at the Gilroy Garlic Festival on 28 July, before he opened fire on the crowd with a Romanian-made AK-47 style-rifle.

Six-year-old Stephen Romero, 13-year-old Keyla Allison Salazar and Trevor Deon Irby, 25, were killed, before police officers shot him.

Authorities later determined that Legan killed himself after he was wounded.

“The shooter appeared to have an interest in varying, competing violent ideologies,” FBI special agent John Bennett told a press conference. "Due to the discovery of the target list, as well as other information we have encountered in this investigation, the FBI has opened a full domestic terrorism investigation into this mass shooting.”

The organisations included on the teenager’s list would be notified, but he said the document will not be released publicly.

Before the shooting, Mr Legan had posted a photograph showing a sign warning of a high danger of forest fires on his Instagram page.

His caption urged people to read “Might is Right”, a racist and sexist treatise written in the 19th century.

Domestic terrorism is defined in US law as “acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any states” that are intended to intimidate civilians, influence government policy through intimidation, or affect how the government functions through mass destruction or other violence.

The FBI Agents Association (FBIAA) called on Congress to change the way it treated such cases earlier this week.

“Domestic terrorism is a threat to the American people and our democracy,” a spokesperson said. "Acts of violence intended to intimidate civilian populations or to influence or affect government policy should be prosecuted as domestic terrorism regardless of the ideology behind them. FBIAA continues to urge Congress to make domestic terrorism a federal crime. This would ensure that FBI Agents and prosecutors have the best tools to fight domestic terrorism.”

Christopher Wray, the FBI’s director, told Congress last month that his agency had made nearly 100 domestic terrorism-related arrests this year, a figure already higher than that of the entirety of 2018.

Within days of the Gilroy shooting, another gunman had opened fire in a Walmart in the Texan city of El Paso, leaving 22 people dead and more than two dozen wounded. Patrick Crusius, 21, of Allen, Texas has been arrested in connection with the killings.

A further nine people were also killed outside a nightclub in Dayton, Ohio. Investigators said gunman Connor Betts, 24, who was killed by police officers, followed a "violent ideology". But they said they had found no evidence that the attack was racially motivated.

Additional reporting by agencies