Heartache at the gilroy garlic festival. A gunman opening fire, sending people running for their lives. Just as that festival was coming to its threeday close. If youve been joining us, weve been on for hours covering breaking news out of the south bay. Good evening, everyone. Im jessica aguirre. And im raj mathai. Were hearing a lot of stories. First, some of the latest numbers we have for you. And this unfortunately is not over. We started this around 5 40 this afternoon, continues into this evening. The gunman several rounds, several victims, and there might be a second suspect on the loose right now. That initial first suspect, the suspected shooter has been shot and killed. This is happening right there at the annual festival, something that the bay area has celebrated more than 40 years now. Within the last hour, investigators did hold the news conference. Here are some of the numbers they passed along to us. Were learning about it along with all of you at home as we continue to get the information. There are three people dead. One of them a 6yearold boy from san jose. 15 others injured. The gunman also dead. So the total count would be four. That includes the gunman. W witnesses have said there may be a second suspect, but thats unclear of the persons involvement, if any, in this shooting near Gilroy High School. We have Live Team Coverage for you, and weve had it on for hours. Let us begin tragically with janelle wang at st. Louise hospital. This is with we had one child die, just a 6yearold boy who had gone to the festival with his mother and his grandmother, and you spoke to the father who seemed to be in absolute shock. Jessica and raj, such a difficult day for the romero family. Three members of their family shot today, including a 6yearold boy confirmed. He passed away here at st. Louise hospital. His mother and grandmother also shot. They were taken to valley med in san jose for their gunshot injuries and were told theyll be going into surgery soon. 6yearold Steven Romero was just such a happy boy, his father told me. He contacted nbc bay area and said he wanted to talk to us about his boy in front of the african american. Just so active, he just celebrated his sixth birthday at legoland in june, and here is what his father had to say about him. How are you holding up . Whats going through your mind . Whats going through my mind is hopefully they get the shooters, and basically thats it right now. And i lost my son. There is nothing i really can do besides try to be with him until i can put him in his resting spot, wherever that is. I dont know what to say to him. My son had his whole life to live. He was only 6. Thats all. Thats all i can say. Reporter you were home with your daughter who was how old is she . She is 9 years old. Reporter and then your wife was shot in the leg . Her arm . In her hands, twice. Reporter and their your motherinlaw was shot in the leg . The leg, i believe in the leg. Im not sure. Reporter obviously Alberto Romero just in shock. Hes out here right now with about a dozen family and friends from san jose. Be at st. Louise hospital in gilroy to be by his side. Lots of tears shed. Its just been such an etiore t dozen patients from the gilroy garlic festival brought here initially. Seven were treated and released. They were suffering from scrapes, bruises, and basically injuries from falling and running for their lives. About six others all gunshot victims were also brought here. Three remain here. Two others were transferred to valley med, and that is the romero family, the mother and the grandmother. As you said, one was shot in the arm and the hand a couple of times. And he thinks the grandmother was shot in the leg, but he has not been able to talk to them since they were rushed to the hospital. And then of course his 6yearold son who passed away here. He does have an older sister, a 9yearold. Both dad and the daughter were at home at the time when they got the call from his wife that they had been shot and that their son had passed away. The family is now wrapping up right now and picking up their belongings. Theyve been waiting until they release the body of the 6yearold boy, and theyve all been out here for hours, standing by the fathers side. And they are just wrapping up and leaving now and going back to san jose, because it appears the boy has been released to the father. They have not even discussed or thought about funeral arrangements or plans. They are just in shock right now. Cant even process whats going on, and obviously theyre just hoping that mom g andma do fine in their surgeries and pull through, and of course mourning for 6yearold Steven Romero. So a very difficult day at st. Louise. Still some hospital victims here. Three gunshot victims. We dont know their condition. No hospital spokesperson has come out yet, but we will be here monitoring this situation here at st. Louise. Reporting live in gilroy, janelle wang, nbc bay area news. Okay, thank you, janelle. And just to think about what that mother must be going through, having been shot when she gets out of surgery to find out. Grandmother, the mother. That her son has been killed. Its just so much for one person to trach in. And thats what weve been hearing for hours. Weve had people, witnesses tell us how they ran for their lives, how they heard the gunshot, how they saw people bleeding, their bodies on the ground. Its just been moments so tragic and heartwrenching for these people, seared into their memories for the rest of their lives. And for the last couple of hours they were in tears telling us, whether on the camera or telephone telling us, there are a lot of Good Samaritans helping them over fences. And thisfid. This is right next to Gilroy High School. They ran into neighbors homes. There were children on rock walls that were shot and pulled down. Elementary school. A lot of these moments caught on camera. Watch some of these. [ gunshots ] you can hear. Those are the gunshots that rang out as people were eating a sandwich or walking around. One minute youre just having something and youre going around looking at a vendor, maybe doing a little shopping. This is as its closing up. A lot of the vendors are starting to take down their booth, and the next thing you know, utter panic. Utter panic. So from whats happening with the victims, which is obviously our priority here to check on their status, but also happening now at this hour is this active search in the gilroy area right near uvas reek. Lets bring in nbc bay areas Marianne Favro who joins us on location. Marianne has switched locations several times following where the local and federal helicopter, marianne, buzzing above you. Yes, theyre still out here, raj. We are at the main entrance of the gilroy garlic festival on uvas and miller. Right now the helicopters are circling above as they have been for the last five hours. The search for the second suspect continues right now. I want to show you whats going on here. There are hundreds of Police Officers here from all different agencies, sheriffs department, and also coming all the way from greenfield and other areas, also north of us. Theyre all here. We also had some Armored Vehicles with s. W. A. T. Teams as welch issing for this possible second suspect. Now in the last hour, they have been out here searching with flashlights on the ground, combing the area near uvas creek and going into the eucalyptus grove, all by foot, for the suspect or possible evidence. Earlier tonight i spoke with Ricardo Garcia of san jose. He was graze bade happened. We were just working, and then heard aerent sure what was it . And then right after a bunch of shots, and it was like out of nowhere, i felt something in my leg. And just kind of threw ourselves to the ground. And then after that, it was just like it started to hurt more and more. I noticed i was bleeding. My sock was ripped. And it hurts really bad right now. Im so glad youre okay. Can you did you get medical attention . Yeah, yeah. They treated me. What condition is your leg . Im not sure if it grazed or bounced off. Im not 100 sure. But i know something hit me. And, sir, can you tell us where were you at the time when you were hit . And did you see the gunman . No, i didnt see him. We by the information booth, like kind of the middle where food and all the food was, pretty much in the middle. Thats where we were at. Can you show us your leg, y ndaged it up. It hit your ankle . Yes. Okay. And obviously, this is such close call. You must feel pretty fortunate. How you feeling tonight . Just happy to be alive and being able to go become to my family. And thats all i want to do right now. Just go back to my family. And back here live, these two women are just getting out of the gilroy garlic festival. Tell me, were you working the festival or were you attending . We were working the festival. So tell me what happened. Well, we were about to start our shift, and we thought we heard firecrackers. To begin and it stopped then we were. This is something. We have security, Armed Security there too. And then they just got all of us and we went inside the trailer and hunkered down for quite a while. And then we still had more duties. We volunteered for the money counting of the festival. So we were at the financial trailer. So we had police armed guards already to block anybody else from going in, except qualified volunteers or approved volunteers, i should say. So we were waiting to start our shift, and thats when we heard all of the sudden, we thought it was fireworks. And thats when we realized afterwards when people started running, no, its gunfire. So the eme were telling them, ground. They rounded us all up. No, its gunfire. They said stay there. They were talkington radios and everything else. Weve just been there since, what, 5 30. So youve been in the trailer. Since 5 30. How terrifying was the situation . Well, we prayed. We prayed a lot. I felt that we were safe there, though. I felt that we were safe. But we had some other people, children or young adults other volunteers come in who had seen a lot and were just terrified. Just terrified. Understandably. So im so glad that youre safe, and thank you for taking the time to talk with us. And im glad youre finally able to go home to your families. Thank you. Thank you very much, ladies. We appreciate it so much. Thank you. And within the last hour, also we want to mention that about 40 people just walked out of here with a police escort, and they were taken and put on buses, coach buses that were waiting, and they were brt Relocation Center so they could be reunited with their families. That all happened within the last hour. R a possible second s. The chopper is overhead, and hundreds of Law Enforcement remain out here tonight. Reporting live in gilroy, Marianne Favro, nbc bay area news. Remarkable to hear those women describe. Now we have better context of why some people were still in there. A lot of them, the employees or the volunteers that had been caught in all of this that were hunkered down trying to stay secure. That womans interview saying that they had been there to count some of the money. Clearly theyre in the financial section of that. And for five hours. Five and a half hours. And there continues to be dozens of people slowly being released. Weve been seeing all these people come out. At 10 00, five busloads. At 10 30, another bus load. And at 11 00, marianne, some other women. And they were fortunate. They had emts and police with them. At least they had some sense of security. What harrowing experience. This all continues to unfold at this hour. And thats what makes this remarkable in itself. So at mariannes location, we know that they are actively looking and have been for hours to see if there is anything along that creek bed or that potential second suspect. But our robert handa is Gilroy High School wherehaslso n reporter thats right. Were about a half a mile away from the main entrance of the park where Marianne Favro was. Were still here at Gilroy High School where a number of agencies are continuing to stage here. We saw those four coach buses leaving here under a police escort. Probably one of them at least headed to the hospital, bringing people out from the scene here. Well give you a quick look at down the road here, down tenth street. This is about a half a mile away i from Christmas Hill park. And the fringe where the search is taking place. You can see some of the vehicles there that have cordoned off that area. That we were onc at one point theyyold us we were not allowed to go 31 there, and we saw a lot of the taitt shift. We saw 15 or so Law Enforcement officers units as well as Armored Vehicles going in. And they have been spreading out through that area. And so we can see that theyre trying to cover quite a large area, but as chris chmura pointed out before, very rural. And we saw them bring in a lot of huge lighting equipment, the kind you see at sporting events. We have not seen them set that up, but it does look like they are prepared for search into areas that are fairly hard to ses well as maybe into the night. Thats the latest in terms of the search from our fringe area here and where the search has been centered. Live in gilroy, robert handa, nbc bay area news. Thank you. Thats where things turned, because for much of this, it was still daylight outside when they were looking for this possible suspect. All of the sudden around 9 00, it go dark. So now its a whole different Tactical Team coming in from local and federal agent, and theyll stay there through the night looking for the possible suspect. We heard the police chief talk about how all this unfolded. And really, the sense of responsibility that he felt being in charge of all this. He said initially that this is something that you never want to see in your career, something he never expected to see happen in gilroy. The police chief spoke. The garlic festival organizer spoke. This is what they had to say. This is one of those press conferences you never want to have to give in your community. And its sort of a nightmare that you never hope you have to live in reality, but unfortunately find ourselves in the circumstances where we have to live this today. Gilroy is an amazing community, a tightly knit community. We are family. We have the wonderful opportunity in this community to celebrate our family through our garlic festival. And for over four decades, that festival has been our annual family reunion. And it is such a sad just horribly upsetting circumstance that this happened. This is all of our small towns. And that you can see how emotional the police chief is, the director of the garlic festival. Even if you havent been to gilroy, weve tasted ic. This is all of our small towns. Its one of the best festivals we have, not just in the bay area, but northern california. This is where we celebrate. 41 years weve celebrated there. You can see how emotional they were to go through all this. And you just dont expect its going to happen. You hear there is all security you. Good to one of these events, you think its going to be great and to be caught in Something Like this. We heard one witness say you just dont think its going to happen to you. Its hard. Lets bring in nbc bay areas lili tan. She has also spoken with some witnesses and people who just left that area. Apparently they saw that gunman facetoface. What do you have, lilttl lili. Reporter absolutely. If these women hadnt left their booth when they did, it would be a different story. They were working at a booth called the honey ladies. They left after 5 00 to go use the rest room. When they consider coming back, they heard a gunshot and saw the shooter. They said he was an average joe, a white male around 25 to 35 years old, wearing a brown hat, green vest and shirts. One of the women tells us what happens next. It was unreal. When you see this happen in other places, you think that can never happen to us. You know, we were standing there. We were in the rest room. We walked out. I literally turned like this, and he is sanding right there, with this rifle. He is getting ready to put the bullets in it and he starts shooting. He is walking towards the tent where we were working. My boss, her husband, they both got shot. Theyre in the hospital right now. Theyre in surgery. I have no idea whats going on with them, their little boy. My granddaughter was in the tent. My granddaughter is 10. She grabbed him him under the box. She said i saw him. He looked at me and started to come that way. I just hid under the box. I didnt know what to do. What an absolutely horrific thing for that 10yearold granddaughter to see. Sheryl says her granddaughter is at home safe, sleeping right now. She said she didnt say anything because she couldnt stop crying, but she is at home safe. She is going to check on her tonight. But sheryl said that she had come here to the press conference to learn more to this Reunification Center so she could talk to people. She cant process what happened. She had come here to keep learning more what had happened tonight and to make sense of ate all. Back to you. Stunning to hear that womans description. Thank you r, lili. That she literally saw d its face. You can hear the shock in her voice. We had someone earlier tonight, saying she was celebrated from her two sons. They walked for 45 minutes across toward 101 where the gilroy Outlet Centers were, taking an uber. Imagine that little girl having to hold that little boy to hide underneath a box. Thats harrowing. You just dont expect it to happen at the gilroy garlic festival. Its been going on since 1979. Who in the bay area doesnt know about the garlic gilroy festival and know its one of the happiest things. We were talking about it on the news on friday about all the things they were going to be doing. People come from all over the bay area, all over Central California for this. Its a big foodie gathering and a community gathering. Lets show you some of the numbers about this. This is a start in the late 1970s. This was the 41st year. The final day. About 80,000 people attend this each year. Its right there at Christmas Hill park in gilroy, which is right next to Gilroy High School. About 100 vendor boot