The Magnificent Gentleman

On May 23, 2014, 22-year-old Elliot Rodger carried out a string of attacks in Isla Vista, the student neighborhood next to the University of California, Santa Barbara. It began inside his apartment. There he stabbed to death his two roommates, Cheng Yuan “James” Hong and Weihan “David” Wang, both 20, and their friend George Chen, 19, who had come over to visit.

That evening he drove to the Alpha Phi sorority house. When no one opened the door, he shot three young women walking nearby. Katherine “Katie” Cooper, 22, and Veronika Weiss, 19, were killed, and the third woman survived. He then shot Christopher “Chris” Michaels-Martinez, 20, inside the IV Deli Mart and kept driving through the streets, firing at people and striking others with his car. Fourteen people were hurt, half of them by gunfire.

Sheriff’s deputies exchanged fire with him, and he was hit in the hip. His BMW crashed into a parked car, and deputies found him dead inside of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. On April 30, deputies had done a welfare check at his apartment after his family raised concerns. In September 2014, California enacted the first law letting relatives ask a court to take guns from someone deemed a danger, and Chris’s father, Richard Martinez, became a national voice for gun safety.