CALIFORNIA RAMPAGE

Siege leaves attacker, 6 others dead

Gunman issued threats in video before slayings

A black BMW sedan crashed near a house in Isla Vista, Calif., apparently driven by a drive-by shooter Friday.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Rodgers

ISLA VISTA, Calif. — A California gunman who went on a rampage near a Santa Barbara university stabbed three people to death at his apartment before shooting to death three others, sheriff’s officials said.

The three people in the apartment were among the six left dead Friday night during the shootings near the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Elliot Rodger, 22, the suspected gunman, apparently killed himself, authorities said.

Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown called it a “chaotic, rapidly unfolding, convoluted incident” that involved multiple crime scenes.

Authorities provided new details about the scope of the killings as they described how the shooter went from one location to another and opened fire on random people and exchanged gunfire with law enforcement before he crashed his BMW.

Sheriff Brown said the suspect had more than 400 rounds of unspent ammunition in his car.

The sheriff identified Rodger as a student at Santa Barbara City College.

People speak to a police officer after a mass shooting near the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara, in Isla Vista, Calif., on Friday. The shooting rampage began in the community.

Rodger fired for 10 minutes as he made his way through the beach community of Isla Vista, where students were walking, bicycling, and skateboarding, in a deadly rampage that mirrored threats made on a YouTube video posted that same night, authorities said.

Seven others remained hospitalized with serious injuries.

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,” Sheriff Brown said.

Authorities said they are looking at the video, titled Elliot Rodger’s Retribution, which was posted Friday shortly before the rampage. It has since been removed from the YouTube site.

“I’ll take great pleasure in slaughtering all of you. You will finally see that I am in truth the superior one, the true alpha male,” the man says on the video, sitting in a car.

A black BMW sedan crashed near a house in Isla Vista, Calif., apparently driven by a drive-by shooter Friday.

In the video, he talks about feeling alienated and rejected by women.

“I will be a god compared to you. You will all be animals. You are animals, and I will slaughter you like animals. I hate all of you. Humanity is a disgusting, wretched, depraved species,” he says.

“Yes, after I have annihilated every single girl in the sorority house, I’ll take to the streets of Isla Vista and slay every single person I see there.”

In the video, Rodger 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.

Earlier Saturday, Alan Shifman — a lawyer who represents Peter Rodger, one of the assistant directors on The Hunger Games — issued a statement regarding the incident and his son, Elliot Rodger.

“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,” Mr. Shifman said.

The shootings started in Isla Vista, a roughly half-square-mile community next to UC Santa Barbara’s campus and picturesque beachside cliffs.

A woman looks at bullet holes on the window of IV Deli Mark on Saturday, where Friday night's mass shooting took place.

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.

Mr. 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.

UC Santa Barbara senior Kyley Scarlet said she heard the BMW smash to a halt outside a house she was in.

“We ran outside and saw a bicyclist had been hit,” she said. “Then the police dragged a body out of the car. It was him,” she said.

Ms. Scarlet, who is a former sorority president, said two girls from a sorority next door were killed on the lawn of Alpha Phi, where a pile of flowers grew on Saturday.

Ms. Scarlet said a third sorority member was wounded there as well. She said all three were in the same sorority, which she did not identify.

Ms. Scarlet said she was very disturbed by the video describing his anger at sorority girls.

“It’s hard thinking my actions, being part of a sorority, led him to do this,” she said. “When I saw that video I was shaking and crying.”

Mr. 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.

The university issued a statement saying 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 said after giving the commencement speech at Laney College in Oakland, California.

California Gov. Jerry Brown offered his condolences to the victims’ families, saying he was saddened to learn “of this senseless tragedy.”