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Update: At least 3 dead in shooting at Gilroy Garlic Festival

by in News

GILROY — A shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival on Sunday left at least three people dead, a city councilman said.

Twelve others were injured,  Councilman Dion Bracco said. He told The Associated Press those are preliminary figures.

Police responded to the festival grounds at Christmas Hill Park near Miller Avenue and Uvas Park Drive around 5:30 p.m., but few details of the shooting were immediately available. At 7:22 p.m., Gilroy Police tweeted that the scene was still active.

  • Police cars line up near the intersection of Miller Avenue and Uvas Park Drive after a shooting was reported Sunday evening at the Gilroy Garlic Festival. (Julia Prodis Sulek/Bay Area News Group)

  • Emergency personnel
    stand outside of Gilroy High School after a shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Gilroy, Calif., on Sunday, July 28, 2019. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

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  • People hug after a multiple shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in
    Gilroy, Calif., on Sunday, July 28, 2019. (Julia Prodis Sulek/Bay Area
    News Group)

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Santa Clara Valley Medical Center spokeswoman Joy Alexiou said the hospital received five victims from the shooting. She had no information on their conditions.

A spokeswoman for Stanford Medical Center said it has two patients there being treated from the shooting. Julie Greicius said she had no details on their injuries or conditions.

 

Evenny Reyes of Gilroy, 13, spent the day at the festival with her friends and some relatives.

“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,” said Reyes. “There was a little kid hurt on the ground. People were throwing tables and cutting fences to get out.”

Reyes said she didn’t run at first, because the gunshots sounded like fireworks. “It started going for five minutes, maybe three. It was like the movies — everyone was crying, people were screaming.”

Todd Jones, a sound engineer, was at the front of the festival’s Vineyard stage when he heard what sounded like a firework.

“But then it started to increase, more rapidly, which sounded more like gunfire, and at that point people realized what was happening,” said Jones.

The crowd quickly scattered, and Jones and other members of the crew hid under a stage. They found their way to the communications headquarters for the festival with about two dozen other people, largely festival staff, where they are sheltering in place.

As of 6:40 p.m., Katherine Filice, who has headed the festival’s promotional effort for several years, said the PR team members were “all OK” but that she had no further information as the situation at Christmas Hill Park was still fluid.

The shooting occurred as the 41st annual event — one of the nation’s most famous food festivals — was wrapping up its three-day run. Besides drawing food lovers from around the country, the festival serves as Gilroy’s top fund-raiser for the year, with volunteers staffing the event to earn money for their clubs, schools and other nonprofit groups. Since 1979, the festival has raised more than $11.7 million for local nonprofits and schools.

6 pm was the closing time, but the entrance gates were to have closed one hour prior to that.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Check back for updates.