LOS ANGELES, Aug 7, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – The FBI has opened a domestic
terrorism investigation into a mass shooting at a California festival last
month after finding evidence of “violent ideologies” on the gunman’s digital
devices, officials said Tuesday.
Santino William Legan killed three people including two children at the
Gilroy Garlic Festival in northern California on July 28 before being
confronted by police and shooting himself.
The 19-year-oldhad compiled a list of potential targets including religious
institutions, federal buildings, courthouses and both the Democratic and
Republican political parties, as well as the festival, said special agent
John Bennett
“Due to the discovery of the target list as well as other information we
encountered in this investigation, the FBI has opened a full domestic
terrorism investigation into this mass shooting,” he told a news conference
in Gilroy, 80 miles (130 kilometers) southeast of San Francisco.
Legan, who used an AK47-type assault rifle, was wearing a bullet-proof vest
during the attack, said Gilroy police chief Scot Smithee.
“The suspect was hit by the police officers’ gunfire multiple times,” he
said.
“None of the people who died in this incident were struck by friendly fire.
They were all killed by the suspect,” he added.
A coroner’s report declared Legan’s cause of death was suicide following a
gunshot wound to the head.
The FBI requires evidence that an individual committed their act of
violence due to ideological motivation to open a domestic terrorism
investigation, Bennett said.
The identities of the specific targets will not be made public while the
investigation is ongoing but those on the list were being notified, he added.
“We have not made a final investigative conclusion into the motive of the
shooter,” said Bennett, describing the gunman’s ideology as “fractured” and
featuring “varying competing violent ideologies.” Legan’s social media,
including an Instagram account created days before the shooting, appeared to
reference a white supremacist book.
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.
A week later, the US was rocked by two further mass shootings in Texas and
Ohio that killed 32 people.
The El Paso, Texas suspected gunman, who is white and from the Dallas area,
reportedly posted an online manifesto railing against a “Hispanic invasion of
Texas.”
Critics have pointed out that the language echoed much of President Donald
Trump’s rhetoric on Twitter and at rallies, where he has frequently
characterized Hispanic migrants as part of an “invasion.”