GILROY, Calif. (AP) — Authorities on Monday were searching for answers to why a 19-year-old opened fire on a popular food festival less than a mile from his parents’ home in California, killing two children and another young man, but believe many more people would have died if officers patrolling the event had not stopped the gunman so quickly.

(AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Santino William Legan, 19, cut through a fence and appeared to randomly target people with an “assault-type rifle” Sunday afternoon, the end of the three-day Gilroy Garlic Festival that attracts about 100,000 people to the city known as the “Garlic Capital of the World,” Gilroy Police Chief Scot Smithee said.

Police responded in less than a minute, and Legan turned his “AK-47-type” gun on them, Smithee said. Three officers fired back and killed Legan, who legally purchased the weapon this month in Nevada, where his last address is listed.

Previously…

GILROY, Calif. (AP) — Edward and Jane Jacobucci said they were standing at their booth selling garlic graters when the shooting started Sunday afternoon at the Gilroy Garlic Festival.

Edward Jacobucci said the shooting was “absolute chaos.” ”It happened right in front of our booth,” he said.

Jane Jacobucci described the shooter as a tall, thin young man in camouflage with a big gun.

She said her husband threw her to the ground when the shooting started.

Three people were killed and at least 15 others injured in the shooting. Also dead is the shooter, who used a rifle and gained entry to the packed festival by cutting through a fence to avoid the tight security, including metal detectors, police said.