The New York Times - 30.07.2019

THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONALTUESDAY, JULY 30, 2019 N A

GILROY, Calif. — The smell of
barbecue was wafting through the
air, a local rock band was playing
its last song and parents were col-
lecting their children at the end of
the annual garlic festival in Gilroy,
Calif., on Sunday when a gunman
opened fire, killing three people.
Stephen Romero, a 6-year-old
boy from San Jose who loved Le-
gos and Batman, had been playing
near a bounce house with his
mother and grandmother before
he was killed. A 13-year-old girl
and a man in his 20s were the
other victims, police said Monday.
The gunman also wounded 12
people before he was fatally shot
in an exchange with three police
officers, who had responded
within one minute, the police chief
said.
“As soon as he saw the officers
he engaged the officers and fired,”
said Chief Scot Smithee of the
Gilroy Police Department. “Then
we had the aftermath of dealing
with the victims.’’
Chief Smithee identified the
gunman as Santino William
Legan, 19, a resident of Gilroy,
about 30 miles southeast of San
Jose. The chief said the gunman’s
motive was not known.
The suspect’s car was found
northeast of Christmas Hill Park,
where the festival was held, the
chief said. The authorities were in
the process of executing a war-
rant to search the car.
Mr. Legan’s home, on Gilroy’s
South Side, also was searched, the
chief said, adding that he had no
further details.
California, by some yardsticks,
is among the states with the strict-
est gun laws in the country. The
authorities did not specify the

type of weapon used in the attack

or whether it is banned in Califor-

nia. But they said the gunman car-

ried out the shooting with a semi-

automatic rifle that he had pur-

chased legally this month in Neva-

da.

“That’s the problem with this

patchwork of laws throughout the

country,” said Adam Skaggs, the

chief counsel of the Giffords Law

Center to Prevent Gun Violence,

which lobbies for tighter gun laws.

“Some places are trying to move

the needle at the state level, but it

is like combating air pollution.

Your state can be the strongest on

regulating emissions, but if neigh-

boring states have no pollution

controls, then air pollution is go-

ing to come downwind.”

Gilroy’s garlic festival, founded

in 1979, is an internationally

known event, drawing roughly

100,000 visitors each year — and

one that has special significance

for locals. Thousands volunteer at

the festival, which raises money

for local organizations, including

youth swim leagues, music

groups and a mission trip to build

houses in Mexico.

Neighbors of the Legan family

said Monday that their quiet, tree-

lined community is home to a di-

verse mix of families and older

residents. Two doors down from

the family’s home, Rosana Men-

doza, who has lived on the street

since 2008, said the Legans were

always pleasant and quick to say

hello.

“It’s a quiet place,” Ms. Men-

doza said. “We are shocked, be-

cause they are very nice people.”

Peter Leroe-Munoz, a city coun-

cilman, said he had volunteered at

a booth at the garlic festival and

was horrified to learn that the

shooting had taken place at the

city’s prime event.

“That is our crown jewel in

terms of our cultural identity,” he

said. “For this kind of tragedy to

take place at something so core to

our community, it is a tragedy be-

yond words.”

The 6-year-old victim, Stephen

Romero, was shot in the back, said

his father, Alberto. Among the

dozen people wounded were Mr.

Romero’s wife, who was shot in

the stomach, and his mother-in-

law, who was shot in a leg.

“My son had his whole life to

live,” Mr. Romero told NBC Bay

Area.

Stephen Romero’s uncle, Noe

Romero, 36, said that his nephew

loved playing with his cousins on a

tire swing outside his grandpar-

ents’ house in San Jose.

“Let’s put it this way, he’s been

the only boy” out of the grandchil-

dren on his father’s side of the

family, Noe Romero said. “That’s

our boy.”

To reach the festival, the sus-

pect appeared to have crossed a

nearby creek and cut a perimeter

fence, the police chief said. The

authorities said they were con-

tinuing to search for a possible ac-

complice, in response to some wit-

ness reports. “We don’t have any

confirmation that any second sus-

pect did any shooting, but we are

certainly investigating all leads to

determine what that person’s role

was,” Chief Smithee said.

Christmas Hill Park is just off a

busy thoroughfare between two

new subdivisions that are under

construction on the southwestern

edge of Gilroy. In recent years,

Gilroy, an agricultural town at the

end of the Bay Area commuter rail

line, has grown into an extended

Silicon Valley suburb.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said on

Twitter that the shooting was

“nothing short of horrific.” Sena-

tor Kamala Harris of California

wrote that “our country has a gun

violence epidemic that we cannot

tolerate.”

Videos posted on social media

showed attendees running past

white tents in a grassy field, ap-

parently fleeing. People looking to

reunite with friends and family

members had been told to gather

at Gavilan College, a community

college on the outskirts of the city.

Marie Blankley, the mayor pro

tempore of Gilroy, spent Sunday

afternoon making mimosas at a

booth for the local Rotary Club.

She finished her shift at 5:30 p.m.,

picked up some ribs to go and

headed home, she said. She now

believes she must have just

missed the shooting, which broke

out around 5:40 p.m.

“I am a lifelong Gilroy resident,

55 years — this is shocking,” she

said in an interview on Monday,

describing a city where thousands

volunteer for the annual garlic fes-

tival and people of all ages come

out to enjoy signature food like

garlic bread, shrimp scampi and

pepper steaks.

“One of the last mimosas I

made, the last mimosa I made be-

fore our shift ended,” was for peo-

ple who turned out to be victims,

Ms. Blankley said, referring to

two people who were injured. One

needed stitches, she said, and the

other had been shot in the arm.

Boy, 6, and Girl, 13,

Are Among Victims

In Attack at Festival

The police closed nearby streets after a shooting Sunday night at

the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California. Three people were killed,

including two children. At left, Noe Romero held a photo of his

6-year-old nephew Stephen, who was one of the victims.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY SARAHBETH MANEY FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

This article is by Lauren Hepler,
Amy Harmonand Richard A. Oppel
Jr.

Lauren Hepler reported from
Gilroy, and Amy Harmon and Rich-
ard A. Oppel Jr. from New York.
Reporting was contributed by Jill
Cowan from Los Angeles and Nich-
olas Bogel-Burroughs, Jacey
Fortin, Adeel Hassan, Jacob
Meschke and Elisha Brown from
New York.

Even with the car windows up,
you can smell Gilroy, Calif.
The odor, pungent and toasty,
wafts from plants processing gar-
lic, the miraculously flavorful alli-
um that forms the base of Mexican
salsa roja, Italian marinara, Cre-
ole gumbo and Korean kimchi.
Forty years ago, Gilroy trans-
formed its infamous stench from a
punch line into a point of pride by
starting the Gilroy Garlic Festival.
Equal parts tourist attraction and
local reunion, it became on Sun-
day the site of a mass shooting
that left three people dead and an-
other dozen wounded.

A 6-year-old boy, a 13-year-old

girl and a man in his 20s were

killed, the authorities said. They

said the 19-year-old gunman, who

was killed at the scene and whose

motive was not immediately clear,

carried out the shooting with a

semiautomatic rifle that he had

purchased legally this month in

Nevada.

The violence occurred at an

event that celebrates an ingredi-

ent that, perhaps more than any

other, integrates the diverse cul-

tures that together form Ameri-

can cuisine.

“Garlic is a unifying ingredi-

ent,” said Bill Esparza, a Los An-

geles-based food writer and an ex-

pert on Mexican cooking. “All

cuisines that have strong flavors

are garlic lovers.”

The crop has been established

in California since the mid-20th

century. Among the immigrants

who worked in the garlic industry

in and around Gilroy were those

from Italy, Japan, Mexico and Por-

tugal, said Pauline Adema, the au-

thor of a book on the Gilroy festi-

val.

Garlic is now so ubiquitous that

it is easy to forget that the ingredi-

ent was once stigmatized, seen as

stinky, ethnic, working-class and

old-world.

Garlic smelled like tenements,

not white tablecloths.

The Gilroy festival, founded in

1979 by a local community college

president, played a role in chang-

ing the crop’s image, and rode a

wave of Northern California food-

ie-ism. Alice Waters of Chez Pa-

nisse in Berkeley had recently be-

gun cooking garlic-themed din-

ners. The appeal of local, organic

produce was on the rise.

In a charming 1980 documenta-

ry, “Garlic Is as Good as Ten Moth-

ers,” the filmmaker Les Blank cel-

ebrated the ingredient and the fes-

tival as symbols of American zest

and multiculturalism.

“People became more curious

about and willing to try the food of

other people,” said Professor

Adema, who leads the food studies

program at the University of the

Pacific. Among Bay Area trend-

setters, she said, the festival was

seen as “this wacky thing happen-

ing in this stinky little place called

Gilroy.”

By the time the festival started,

much of the actual garlic growing

had begun to move inland, east of

Gilroy, where land is cheaper. The

town’s odor comes from facilities

that dehydrate and process garlic

bulbs, turning them into super-

market products like garlic pow-

der and prechopped garlic in glass

jars.

The festival, with its mix of ce-

lebrity chef appearances, musical

performances and kitsch — there

is garlic ice cream — draws an es-

timated 100,000 food lovers each

year. It attracts Silicon Valley ex-

ecutives and farm workers alike,

who watch cook-offs and kitchen

tutorials, and amble down

Gourmet Alley, where they can

sample pasta with pesto, shrimp

scampi and garlic bread.

This year’s festival came at a

good time for the California garlic

industry: In part because of Presi-

dent Trump’s trade standoff with

China, American garlic sales are

increasing while Chinese growers

— long dominant — are suffering

in the American market.

Mr. Esparza, the California food

writer, grew up in the Central Val-

ley in a family of agricultural

workers. The garlic festival, he

said, offered many working-class

families a chance to unwind close

to home and celebrate the fruits of

their labor. He noted that it is

largely immigrant workers who

pick garlic, package it and cook it

in restaurants.

“When I think about garlic,” he

said, “I think about immigrants.”

From Infamous Stench to Point of Pride: A Town Celebrates Garlic’s Appeal

By DANA GOLDSTEIN

Jill Cowan, Jose A. Del Real and
Manny Fernandez contributed re-
porting. Susan Beachy contributed
research.

A food that has

helped thread

cuisines together.

SAN JUAN, P.R. — The mes-
sage from the public to the woman
who is in line to become Puerto Ri-
co’s next governor has been as
clear — and as literal — as the
writing on the wall: “We are com-
ing for you,” said a patch of graffiti
on a building in Old San Juan.
It was addressed to Wanda
Vázquez, who is set to step into the
job later this week.
Some of the protesters who suc-
cessfully ousted Gov. Ricardo
Rosselló after two weeks of rallies
appear now to have set their
sights on Ms. Vázquez, the secre-
tary of justice, who under the ter-
ritory’s Constitution will become
governor when Mr. Rosselló’s res-
ignation becomes effective at 5
p.m. on Friday.
Several hundred people banged
on pots and pans while marching
in front of her office on Monday,
demanding that she not only de-
cline to take the governor’s post
but resign from her current job as
well.
“She has acted more like
Rosselló’s lawyer than a justice
secretary,” said Marta Quiles
Jiménez, 33, a San Juan psycholo-
gist who was among the pro-
testers.
The latest signs of opposition to
Ms. Vázquez, who is seen as too
close to cover-ups and corruption
in Mr. Rosselló’s unpopular ad-

ministration, present a test for the

new revolutionary movement

that unseated the current gover-

nor: Can the loosely organized

street protests that mobilized

hundreds of thousands of people

to oust Mr. Rosselló be channeled

into longer-term change?

Protesters ran Mr. Rosselló out

of office last week after the release

of a series of offensive text mes-

sages tapped into longstanding

public frustration over corruption,

economic problems and a slow re-

sponse to Hurricane Maria in

2017.

Emboldened by their victory,

some of the leaders of the demon-

strations are making it clear that

their demands went beyond sim-

ply ending the governor’s term a

year and a half early. They are in-

sisting on fundamental democrat-

ic changes in a place where two-

party politics have traditionally

played out within a relatively lim-

ited circle of power. Fears that

party leaders are negotiating se-

cret deals to name a crony as the

governor’s replacement — or that

Ms. Vázquez could in fact end up

as governor — have already led to

the threat of ongoing protests.

“It’s like they haven’t learned a

thing,” said Melissa Mark-Viver-

ito, a former New York City Coun-

cil speaker whom the governor in-

sulted in the chats and who has

been participating in the protests.

“For them to be striking back-

room deals to pick a new governor

is everything that the people

found repugnant and everything

that has the people marching

again. You cannot replace one cor-

rupt administration with another

corrupt administration.”

Mr. Rosselló was forced out af-

ter two weeks of immense pres-

sure both on the streets and within

his party. The secretary of state,

who would normally take the gov-

ernor’s place, had already re-

signed over his own role in the

bawdy text exchange. That means

Ms. Vázquez is next in line — un-

less the governing New Progres-

sive Party can name and confirm

a new secretary of state by Friday.

Party leaders have encouraged

the governor to name someone

quickly, but no acceptable candi-

dates have emerged.

On Friday, the governor posted

photos of himself and Ms. Vázquez

planning the “transition.”

But on Sunday, she posted on

Twitter that she does not really

want the job. “I reiterate, I have no

interest in occupying the gover-

nor’s post,” she wrote. “It is a con-

stitutional rule. I hope the gover-

nor identifies and submits a candi-

date for the position of secretary

of state before Aug. 2, and I have

told him so.”

Some news outlets took that to

mean that Ms. Vázquez was turn-

ing down the job. A spokeswoman,

Mariana Cobián, clarified on Mon-

day that Ms. Vázquez was simply

saying that she has never been an

elected politician and does not

seek to become one.

“She is a believer and follower

of the law and the Constitution,”

Ms. Cobián told The New York

Times. “It is what the Constitution

says, and she will do what the Con-

stitution says.”

Ms. Vázquez has recently come

under fire because she declined to

investigate trailers loaded with

unused hurricane aid that were

found a year after Maria. Leaked

messages showed that she had

not only passed on looking into the

matter but had also discussed the

issue with the governor’s chief of

staff before doing so.

Ms. Vázquez, a former prosecu-

tor, had also been the head of the

island’s women’s affairs office.

The occupant of that position, a 10-

year appointment, is supposed to

serve as an advocate for women’s

issues. Ms. Vázquez was the sub-

ject of controversy from the start

after suggesting that domestic vi-

olence victims should take up

arms against their abusers. But

feminist groups said that when it

came to new policies to help wom-

en, she had failed to act.

The feminist groups had

pushed for the administration to

declare a state of emergency after

a sharp increase in gender-based

violence, but Ms. Vázquez, they

complained, did not take a posi-

tion on the matter. She left the po-

sition after seven years to become

secretary of justice.

Ms. Vázquez was briefly sus-

pended as Puerto Rico’s justice

secretary last year after she was

accused of meddling in a case in

which her daughter was the vic-

tim of a burglary. A judge cleared

her, and she returned to her post.

Opposition to Ms. Vázquez be-

gan building even before Mr.

Rosselló announced his resigna-

tion on Wednesday. The hashtag

#WandaRenuncia (“Wanda Re-

sign”) has been shared on Twitter

62,129 times in the past week.

René Pérez, the rapper known

as Residente, canceled engage-

ments in New York to continue to

protest even after Mr. Rosselló an-

nounced his resignation. “Even if

he resigns, the next person in line

to be governor is going to be cor-

rupt, so that’s why we have to stay

on the streets fighting the same

way we fought,” Mr. Pérez said in a

voice mail message to The Times.

“I think we need new faces.”

He noted that the succession

rules are enshrined in a Constitu-

tion that was written not by

Puerto Ricans, but by officials in

Washington decades ago.

Yadira Carrasquillo González, a

45-year-old activist who joined

the protest outside Ms. Vázquez’s

office, said many of those who

were still in the streets were hop-

ing to change the status quo in fa-

vor of a community-based system

in which candidates are chosen by

the public.

“We want them all to resign,”

Ms. Carrasquillo said. “My God,

yes, let them all go. They are all

part of the system of corruption.

We don’t want any of them.”

If Ms. Vázquez were to decide

not to accept the position, the job

would fall to the secretary of edu-

cation, Eligio Hernández, who is

fifth in line and has been in his job

only since April. The person who

is fourth in line, the treasury sec-

retary, would be passed over be-

cause the Constitution dictates

that the governor has to be at least

35 years old. The treasury secre-

tary, Francisco Parés, is 31.

Next in Line as Puerto Rico’s Governor

Is Also Next in Line as Target of Protests

By FRANCES ROBLES

A protest in San Juan against Wanda Vázquez, Puerto Rico’s sec-

retary of justice, who is in line to succeed Gov. Ricardo Rosselló.

ERIKA P. RODRIGUEZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Opponents see anyone

in the ousted leader’s

cabinet as tainted.

Edmy Ayala contributed reporting
from San Juan.