California Gunman Reportedly Promoted White Supremacist Manifesto Before Opening Fire

Police identified on Monday the man who opened fire on the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Northern California over the weekend, killing at least three and injuring a dozen more, as 19 year old Santino William Legan.

While authorities are still piecing together the timeline of events, new details about Legan’s private life have begun to emerge since he was publicly named, including an Instagram account in his name—opened just days before the shooting took place—which promoted a white supremacist text.

In a series of posts uploaded to the account, the user raged against the site of the subsequent massacre, writing, “Ayyy garlic festival time Come get wasted on overpriced shit.” Then on the day of the shooting, the user urged followers to “Read Might is Right by Ragnar Redbeard”—an influential 19th century work considered a foundational text for the modern white supremacist movement, alongside a picture of a Smokey the Bear sign reading “Fire Danger High Today!”

“Why overcrowd towns and pave more open space to make room for hordes of mestizos and Silicon Valley white twats?” the post continued. It has since been deleted, along with the rest of the account, although screencaps have circulated online.

Speaking with Rolling Stone, Southern Poverty Law Center Senior Analyst Keegan Hankes explained that Might is Right, which argues for white ethnic superiority, is “widely popular and present among ethnocentric white nationalists of all levels, from suit-and-tie white supremacists to neo-Nazis.”

The degree to which Legan may have been influenced by white supremacist ideology is still under investigation. One witness of the shooting, who spoke with the Associated Press, said he heard another person ask Legan during the attack: “Why are you doing this?”