Rampage mirrors threats made on YouTube video
Associated Press
By RAQUEL MARIA DILLON, MARTHA
MENDOZA and JULIE WATSON
GOLETA, Calif. (AP) — The gunman
fired for 10 minutes in streets where university students were walking, biking
and skateboarding in the beach community near Santa Barbara, picking off people
one by one in a deadly rampage that chillingly mirrored threats made on a
YouTube video posted that same night. Seven people were killed in all,
including the shooter.
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A Hollywood director believes his
son, Elliot Rodger, was the lone gunman found dead behind the wheel of the BMW
that crashed into a parked car, ending the shootings Friday night in Isla Vista
near the University of California,
Santa Barbara,
the family's lawyer said Saturday. Seven others remained hospitalized with
serious injuries.
Authorities were not naming the
shooter yet but said they had identified him and seized a semi-automatic
handgun. It wasn't immediately clear whether he was killed by gunfire in two
shootouts with deputies or if he committed suicide.
Investigators were analyzing a
YouTube video in which a young man who identifies himself as Elliot Rodger sits
in a car and looks at the camera, laughing often, and says he is going to take
his revenge against humanity.
"It's obviously the work of a
madman," Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said.
Alan Shifman — a lawyer who
represents Peter Rodger, one of the assistant directors on "The Hunger Games" — issued a
statement saying his client believes his son, Elliot Rodger, was the shooter.
It was unclear how the son would have obtained a gun. The family is staunchly
against guns, he added.
"The Rodger family offers
their deepest compassion and sympathy to the families involved in this terrible
tragedy. We are experiencing the most inconceivable pain, and our hearts go out
to everybody involved," Shifman said.
Richard Martinez said his son
Christopher Martinez, 20, was killed in the shooting. He blamed politicians and
gun-rights proponents. "When will this insanity stop? ... Too many have
died. We should say to ourselves 'not one more,'" he said.
The shootings started around 9:30
p.m. in Isla Vista, a roughly half-square-mile community next to UC Santa
Barbara's campus and picturesque beachside cliffs.
Alexander Mattera, 23, said his
friend Chris Johnson was walking out of an improv comedy show when he was shot
in front of a popular pizza place. He stumbled into a nearby house.
"He walked into these random
guys' house bleeding," he said.
Mattera was sitting at a bonfire
with friends when at least one gunshot whizzed overhead. The friends ran for
cover when they heard the barrage of gunfire.
"We heard so many gunshots.
It was unbelievable. I thought they were firecrackers," he said.
Describing the shootings as
"premeditated mass murder," Brown said a YouTube video posted Friday
that shows a young man describing plans to shoot women appears to be connected
to the attack.
The man in the video describes
loneliness and frustration because "girls have never been attracted to
me," and says, at age 22, he is still a virgin. The video, which is almost
seven minutes long, appears scripted. The identity of the person in the video
could not be independently confirmed.
Attorney Shifman said the Rodger
family called police several weeks ago after being alarmed by YouTube videos
"regarding suicide and the killing of people" that Elliot Rodger had
been posting.
Police interviewed Elliot Rodger
and found him to be a "perfectly polite, kind and wonderful human,"
but noted that he had few friends and no girlfriend, he added. Police did not
find a history of guns.
Isla Vista, which is centered on university life with outdoor cafes,
bike shops, burger joints, sororities and fraternities, was shrouded in fog and
unusually quiet Saturday.
Police tape crisscrossed Isla Vista streets, while blood was still visible on the
asphalt. Bullet holes pierced windows of a parked car and the IV Deli Mart. A
small shrine of flowers was growing outside the business, whose floors inside
were stained with blood. For much of the day, the wrecked BMW driven by the
shooter remained on the street, its windshield smashed in and its driver's door
wide open.
Tyler Martin, a UCSB freshman from
Danville, California,
was visiting his injured friend at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, where the
seven victims were being treated.
He said two friends were riding
longboards near his home about 9:30 p.m. when a car suddenly came up from
behind and ran over one and clipped the other. Martin ran outside to help and
tended to his most injured friend.
"As I was leaning over and
trying to comfort him — he was in a lot of pain, obviously — I heard pop, pop,
pop," Martin said.
The friend who was run over
suffered leg injuries and was in surgery Saturday. The other friend was not
seriously hurt.
In a statement, the university
said it was "shocked and saddened" that several students were shot.
"This is almost the kind of
event that's impossible to prevent and almost impossible to predict," UC President Janet Napolitano told
reporters after giving the commencement speech at Laney
College in Oakland, California.
Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown offered his condolences to
the victims' families, saying he was saddened to learn "of this senseless
tragedy."
The Rodger family is not ready to
speak publicly yet, but wants to cooperate fully with police, Shifman said.
"My client's mission in life
will be to try to prevent any such tragedies from ever happening again,"
he said. "This country, this world, needs to address mental illness and
the ramifications from not recognizing these illnesses."
Isla Vista has a reputation for excessive partying. Last month, an
annual spring bash spiraled into violence as young people clashed with police
and tossed rocks and bottles. A university police officer and four deputies
were injured and 130 people were arrested.
The community has experienced
other tragedies in the past.
In 2001, the son of "Ally
McBeal" TV director Daniel Attias ran down four pedestrians with his car
on a crowded Isla Vista street. Witnesses
testified that part-time college student David Attias got of the car and
shouted: "I am the angel of death!"
David Attias was ruled insane
after he was convicted of second-degree murder and is locked up in a state
mental hospital.
The Hunger Games
Stanley
Tucci is an actor in The Hunger
Games: Mockingjay - Part 1, The
Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2, The
Hunger Games (2012), The Hunger
Games: Catching Fire (2013), and a trustee at the Sundance Institute.
Note: Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Sundance Institute, the Brookings Institution (think tank),
and the Urban Institute (think tank).
George Soros
was the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society.
Mellody L. Hobson
is a trustee at the Sundance Institute,
and a member of the Commercial Club of
Chicago.
Valerie B. Jarrett
is a member of the Commercial Club of
Chicago, the senior adviser for the Barack
Obama administration, and her great uncle is Vernon E. Jordan Jr.
Walter
E. Massey is a member of the Commercial
Club of Chicago, and was a provost & VP for the University of California.
Kathleen
Brown is a member of the Commercial
Club of Chicago, and California state government governor Jerry Brown’s sister.
Jerry
Brown is Kathleen Brown’s
brother, the California state government governor, and was the mayor of Oakland (CA).
Cyrus F.
Freidheim Jr. is a member of the Commercial
Club of Chicago, and an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank).
Richard
C. Blum is an honorary trustee at the Brookings
Institution (think tank), married to Senator Dianne Feinstein, a regent at the University of California, and a board member for the Haas School of Business.
Janet A.
Napolitano is the president for the University of California,
and the homeland security secretary for the Barack Obama administration.
Haas
School of Business is a business school at the University of California,
Berkeley.
Christina D. Romer
is a professor at the University
of California, Berkeley, married to David H. Romer, and was the council of economic advisers chairman
for the Barack Obama administration.
David
H. Romer is married to Christina D.
Romer, a professor at the University
of California, Berkeley, and is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution (think tank).
Vernon E. Jordan Jr. is an honorary
trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank), Valerie B. Jarrett’s great uncle, a director at the American
Friends of Bilderberg (think tank), a life trustee at the Urban Institute (think tank), and a
2008 Bilderberg conference participant (think tank).
Melvin L. Oliver
was a trustee at the Urban Institute (think
tank), and a professor at the University
of California Santa Barbara.
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