Coroner Says Gilroy Festival Shooter Killed Himself, Contradicts Police Reports

Enlarge this image toggle caption Josie Lepe/AP Josie Lepe/AP

The Santa Clara County coroner's office says the gunman who fatally shot three people at a festival in Gilroy, Calif., last weekend killed himself, a conclusion that contradicts initial police reports that responding officers killed the shooter.

Nicole Lopez, a senior office specialist in the county's Medical Examiner-Coroner's Office, said that the gunman, Santino William Legan, 19, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Gilroy Police Chief Scot Smithee, in a news conference earlier this week, said that three officers confronted the shooter less than a minute after he began the attack and killed him, despite being armed only with handguns. Legan was carrying an assault-style rifle purchased legally in Nevada.

In another press briefing late Friday, Smithee suggested that there was no real contradiction, saying the coroner found that the gunman shot himself in the head after he was taken down by the responding officers.

"The suspect was hit multiple times by the rounds that our officers fired, which put him down," Smithee said. "Once he was down he was able to get a shot off and shot himself."

Smithee called the coroner's office report "preliminary" and said, "It doesn't change anything." He said a full report will reveal how many times the gunman was hit.

Investigators still have not determined a motive for the shooting that killed two children and a man in his twenties. Thirteen people were injured.