News

Sexually frustrated; son of Hollywood director kills 6 in California

USPA News - Six people were killed Friday and more than a dozen others were injured when the hate-filled son of a Hollywood director went on a stabbing and shooting spree in a California college town, apparently in his bid to seek "retribution" for rejections from women. Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown identified the suspect as 22-year-old Elliot Rodger, the son of Peter Rodger, who was an assistant director on the blockbuster movie "The Hunger Games."
Rodger - who was the seventh fatality after an apparent suicide - left a trail of bizarre writings and YouTube videos that showed his extreme hate towards women. The incident began on Friday evening when three men were stabbed to death inside Rodger`s residence at Capri Apartments in Isla Vista, a town near the campus of the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB). Brown, calling it a "pretty horrific" crime scene, said the men had been "stabbed repeatedly with sharp objects." It was not immediately clear when the men were stabbed to death, but the murders were followed by a shooting spree that began just before 9:27 p.m. local time after women at the nearby Alpha Phi sorority house heard "loud and aggressive" knocking on their front door. It lasted for about one to two minutes. "Fortunately, no one opened the door and, shortly afterwards, witnesses reported seeing three young women, who were standing outside in the vicinity, [being] shot by the suspect from across the street," Brown said. He said two of the women, 19-year-old UCSB student Veronika Weiss and 22-year-old UCSB student Katherine Cooper, were killed. The third woman survived but suffered multiple gunshot wounds. After the first shooting, Rodger is believed to have traveled in his black BMW to a nearby delicatessen, where he shot and killed 20-year-old UCSB student Christopher Michael-Martinez. Deputies on foot in the area heard the gunfire and went to investigate but were only able to observe Rodger fleeing the scene. At seven other scenes, twelve more people were injured, making for a total of thirteen injured, including eight people who were shot, four people who were struck by Rodger`s vehicle, and one person whose cause of injury was not immediately clear. Two of the injured remained in a serious condition on Saturday while eight had already been released. Rodger also fired at officers who were responding to his outburst of violence in the college town, but none of them were injured. At one scene, deputies coming under fire from Rodger were able to return fire, striking his vehicle and shooting the suspect in his left hip area, the sheriff said. Despite being injured by police, Rodger was again able to flee the scene and continued his rampage by striking a bicyclist at a high rate of speed. "This victim was thrown onto the hood of the suspect`s vehicle and caved in the windshield of that vehicle," Brown said. "The suspect`s vehicle then collided with several parked cars and came to a stop." Deputies in pursuit of the gunman immediately moved in and removed Rodger from the car before handcuffing him, but it was soon apparent that he was dead from a gunshot wound to the head, ending a shooting rampage that had begun only about 10 minutes earlier. Brown said the gunshot wound to the head was believed to have been self-inflicted and not the result of shots fired by police. Investigators recovered a total of three 9mm semiautomatic handguns - two SIG Sauer P226 pistols and one Glock 34 Longslide pistol - from Rodger`s vehicle, but all of them had been legally purchased. By the time he was dead, he was still in possession of another 41 loaded 10-round magazines. Brown, calling the massacre the work of a "madman" who was "severely mentally disturbed," said officers had been in contact with Rodger on three previous occasions. The first time was in July 2013 in reference to an alleged assault and the second was in January when Rodger had made a citizen arrest of his roommate after accusing him of stealing three candles worth $22 combined. The third and last contact was on April 30th after a family member asked sheriff`s deputies to check on Rodger`s welfare, but responding officers found him to be timid and shy, though polite and courteous. "He downplayed the concerns for his welfare and the deputies cleared the call," Brown said, adding that his behavior did not meet the criteria for an involuntary mental health hold. But the motive behind the massacre became quickly apparent with the discovery of a 141-page manifesto titled "My Twisted World" sent to a local TV station and various video recordings posted to Rodger`s YouTube channel. A number of recent comments had also been posted on various websites, showing his extreme hatred for women. "Tomorrow is the day of retribution, the day in which I will have my revenge against humanity. Against all of you," Rodger said in his last video, shot inside his car at sunset. "For the last eight years of my life, ever since I`ve hit puberty, I`ve been forced to endure an existence of loneliness, rejection, and unfulfilled desires. All because girls have never been attracted to me." Rodger added: "I`m 22 years old and I`m still a virgin, I`ve never even kissed a girl. I`ve been through college for 2.5 years, more than that actually, and I`m still a virgin. And it`s been very torturous. College is the time when everyone experiences those things such as sex and fun and pleasure. In those years I`ve had to rot in loneliness, it`s not fair." The gunman continued his rant in the nearly 7-minute video, wondering why women were not attracted to him and displaying extreme narcissism, referring to himself as the "extreme gentleman". He also explained his plan of wanting to enter a sorority house, possibly referring to Alpha Phi where no one answered when he banged on the front door. "I`m going to enter the hottest sorority house of UCSB and I will slaughter every single spoiled, stuck-up blonde slut I see inside there," Rodger said, speaking calmly and smiling at times. "All those girls I`ve desired so much, they would have all rejected me and looked down upon me as an inferior man if I ever made a sexual advance towards them while they throw themselves at these obnoxious brutes. I`ll take great pleasure in slaughtering all of you." In his lengthy manifesto, Rodger continued to vent about his hatred against women, calling them "vicious, evil, barbaric animals" for sleeping with "degenerate" men. He went on to explain his wishes for an "ideal world" where sexuality is outlawed with the purpose of making humanity "pure and civilized." "In order to completely abolish sex, women themselves would have to be abolished. All women must be quarantined like the plague they are, so that they can be used in a manner that actually benefits a civilized society," Rodger wrote in the manifesto, adding later: "The first strike against women will be to quarantine all of them in concentration camps. At these camps, the vast majority of the female population will be deliberately starved to death." Brown said investigators became quickly aware of the manifesto and the videos after the stabbing and shooting spree came to an end. "In reading this 141-page rambling autobiographical, almost a combination of an autobiography and a diary, it`s very apparent of the severe extent of how disturbed Mr. Rodger was," the sheriff said. University of California President Janet Napolitano said she was "shocked and deeply saddened" by Friday`s killings near the school`s Santa Barbara campus. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims of this tragedy, their families and the entire Santa Barbara community," she said in a statement.
Liability for this article lies with the author, who also holds the copyright. Editorial content from USPA may be quoted on other websites as long as the quote comprises no more than 5% of the entire text, is marked as such and the source is named (via hyperlink).