The suspect entered the festival after cutting through a perimeter fence, Gilroy Chief of Police Scot Smithee told reporters. He said witnesses reported that a second suspect may have been involved, possibly in a support role.<\/p>\n
Officers were already at the site and responded to the shooting in less than a minute, Chief Smithee added.<\/p>\n
Videos posted on social media showed people running away from the festival, which took place 30 miles (48km) south of San Jose.<\/p>\n
“What’s going on?” a woman can be heard asking in one video, “who’d shoot up a garlic festival?”<\/p>\n
“We couldn’t feel worse,” Brian Bowe, the festival’s executive director, said at a news conference on Sunday. “It’s just a horrible thing to experience.”<\/p>\n
“This is nothing short of horrific,” tweeted California Governor Gavin Newsom.<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump also tweeted about the shooting, urging people to “be careful and safe”.<\/p>\n
Some people are being treated for critical injuries, a spokeswoman for the Santa Clara Valley Public Health System said.<\/p>\n
The Santa Clara County Medical Center has so far admitted five victims, CBS reports. Two patients are being treated at a medical centre at Stanford University, according to CNN.<\/p>\n
Michael Paz, 72, a hat vendor at the festival, told the San Francisco Chronicle that he saw a gunman armed with a rapid-fire assault rifle.<\/p>\n
“He came ready to shoot because he was wearing a protective vest,” Paz said. “He was shooting left; he was shooting right without any particular aim.”<\/p>\n
As police swooped on the gunman and shots were fired, festival attendees dropped to the ground, Mr Paz said.<\/p>\n
“It was just rapid firing,” Ms Contreras told NBC Bay Area. “I could see him shooting in just every direction. He wasn’t aiming at anyone specifically.<\/p>\n
“It was just left to right, right to left. He definitely was prepared for what he was doing.”<\/p>\n
Evenny Reyes, 13, was among those who scattered in confusion when gunfire erupted at around 17:30 local time (00:30 GMT Monday).<\/p>\n
“We were just leaving and we saw a guy with a bandana wrapped around his leg because he got shot,” she told the San Jose Mercury News.<\/p>\n
The Gilroy Garlic Festival has been held annually since 1979. The city is a major garlic producer and the event features cooking competitions and live entertainment.<\/p>\n
Christmas Hill Park, where the event was taking place, bans weapons of any kind, according to the festival’s website.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Gun Violence Archive defines a mass shooting as a gun attack in which at least four people are either killed or wounded.<\/p>\n In total, it estimates that 8,434 people have died as a result of gun violence in the US in 2019 so far.<\/p>\n The deadliest shooting in the US this year saw 13 people killed at a municipal building in Virginia Beach.<\/a><\/p>\n Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"Map](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/0833\/production\/_108099020_gilroy_california_976.png\")
<\/span><\/figure>\n