Santa Barbara – The night of May 23rd will be forever etched in the memories of this community and will likely fuel heightened concerns of parents for the safety of their kids as they go off to college for generations to come.
It was just after 9:00 p.m. that Friday night when Elliot Oliver Robertson Rodger, a 22-year-old Santa Barbara City College student living in Isla Vista, finally erupted with the rage of the truly deranged as he drove his black BMW through the streets of Isla Vista where he lived with three roommates and wreaked ultimate havoc that left six others and himself dead, with 13 others wounded.
Immediately following Rodger’s drive-by shooting rampage in the densely-populated college town adjacent to the UCSB campus, and as the body count on the street was still being assessed over an area involving a dozen individual crime scenes in ten separate locations, Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department deputies went to Rodger’s Seville Road apartment and discovered his three roommates all deceased, victims of multiple stab wounds.
According to Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department Public Information Officer Kelly Hoover, Rodger killed his roommates and then went directly to a UCSB sorority house to exact revenge for what he had perceived as ongoing personal slights and humiliation. His efforts to enter the sorority house failed, whereupon he promptly shot three female pedestrians across the street, two of whom died from their injuries. He then drove his car to a nearby deli-market, entered the store, and shot a male UCSB student. “Sheriff’s deputies heard the shooting and responded to the scene,” Hoover reported, but having no identity of an alleged shooter, observed his BMW driving away from the scene.
Rodger’s path of travel throughout the community continued, with him firing random shots at pedestrians, brandishing a handgun at a female, and then shooting at “a lone Sheriff’s deputy who responded to the area by foot.” The deputy immediately returned fire as Rodger drove off, shortly thereafter running down a bicycle, firing additional rounds at pedestrians, two of whom were struck by gunfire.
By this time Sheriff’s units were responding, deputies were pursuing the BMW on foot, cutting across a park, and engaging him by returning gunfire, “striking the vehicle and shooting the suspect in his left hip area.”
The running gun battle continued as Roger ran down a second bicyclist, then collided with a number of parked cars, at which time the BMW ground to a halt. Deputies summarily extracted Rodger from the vehicle and quickly determined that he was dead of a gunshot wound to the head.
Inside the car, Deputies discovered three loaded handguns, 46 loaded clips, and 400 rounds of ammunition.
Rodger, whose family resides in Woodland Hills, Ca., just hours before the killings had posted a rambling 6-minute YouTube video detailing his motivations for what was to come.
It’s not the first time the UCSB campus has been the scene of horrific violence and world media attention, with multiple deaths occuring in the same Isla Vista neighborhood at the hands of a deranged student in 2001, and a series of sexual molestations, rapes, and armed robberies taking place in the intervening decade. In addressing this most recent tragedy, UCSB Chancellor Henry T. Yang announced a memorial service to be held on campus on May 27th, with a permanent memorial to be erected in the days to come.
Photos: Courtesy Santa Barbara County Sheriffs, www.YouTube.com
Read more:
Washington Post: Shooter kills at least six people in rampage
Noozhawk: Authorities Release names of last 3 victims
ABC: Santa Barbara shooter was angry
