A six-year-old boy and 13-year-old girl were among those killed by a gunman who opened fire at a popular food festival in California on Sunday.
Santino William Legan, 19, appeared to target people randomly as he began shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival after cutting through a fence to gain entry, according to the police.
He killed three people and injured another 12 with an assault-style rifle before being fatally shot by police officers who responded to the incident in less than a minute.
Six-year-old Stephen Romero, the 13-year-old girl and a man in his 20s were killed, officials and authorities said. The motive for the attack is unclear.
Alberto Romero, Stephen’s father, told the San Francisco Bay Area news station KNTV: "My son had his whole life to live and he was only 6. That’s all I can say."
The attack came at the end of the three-day festival in Gilroy, a city in north California known as the "Garlic Capital of the World”. The event is attended by more than 100,000 people.
Festival attendees have to pass through metal detectors and have their bags searched, but the shooter is believed to have gained access through a fence near a car park. Details of the attack are still emerging.
#BREAKING UPDATE: Ambulance crews were told 11 people down in a reported shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival. https://t.co/ufzR4VllUL pic.twitter.com/giApm5t2bX
— Stephen Ellison (@sj_ellison) July 29, 2019
Jack van Breen, a musician playing at the festival, said he saw a man wearing a green shirt and grayish handkerchief around his neck fire into the food area with what looked like an assault rifle. He and other members of the band dove under the stage.
Mr Van Breen said he heard someone shout: "Why are you doing this?" The reply was: "Because I’m really angry."
Donna Carlson of Reno, Nevada, told reporters she was helping a friend at a jewellery booth when "all of a sudden it was pop, pop, pop.” She hid behind a table until police said it was safe to leave.
Donald Trump, the US president, condemned the "wicked murderer” during an event at the White House on Monday morning.
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He said: "We express our deepest sadness and sorrow for the families who lost a precious loved one in the horrific shooting last night in Gilroy, California.”
Police Chief Scot Smithee said police officers in the area confronted the suspect less than a minute after he opened fire, and the suspect was shot and killed.
"He had some sort of a rifle," Mr Smithee said, adding they were investigating the possibility there was a second shooter.
Witnesses reported confusion and panic as shots rang out at the event in the city of 50,000 located about 80 miles southeast of San Francisco.
AP
Videos posted on social media appeared to show festival attendees scattering in confusion as at least one loud popping sound could be heard in the background.
"What’s going on?" a woman can be heard asking on one video. "Who’d shoot up a garlic festival?"
Herman Solis, of Hollister, said he and his girlfriend dropped to the ground when he heard shots fired.
“You could hear the bullets whizzing by,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle. “It was unreal. We ran and ducked for cover. It was chaos. At first I thought it was fireworks. Then I realised it wasn’t.”
Another witness, Julissa Contreras, told NBC a white man in his 30s armed with a rifle opened fire indiscriminately.
"I could see him shooting in just every direction. He wasn’t aiming at anyone specifically. It was just left to right, right to left," Ms Contreras told the network.
AP
Tim Cook, the Apple CEO, shared his condolences on Twitter, saying he was "deeply saddened" by the targeting of the "beloved community tradition".
Earlier Gilroy police said: “The hearts of the Gilroy Police Department and the entire community go out to the victims of today’s shooting at the Garlic Festival.”