The drive-by shooting rampage that rocked Santa Barbara,
California Friday night may have been a premeditated mass murder, ABC reports Sheriff Bill Brown as saying, and the
suspected shooter may have left behind video detailing murderous intentions.
KCAL reached out to
director Peter Rodger and an attorney confirmed that Rodger's 22 year-old son
Elliot was "involved" in the shooting.
Elliot Rodger uploaded a video to his YouTube channel last night (that has
since been taken down) where he spoke of a "day of retribution" when
he would have his "revenge against humanity" for his loneliness and
sexual frustration. He spoke of targeting women and proclaimed himself
"the true alpha male."
I take great pleasure in slaughtering all of you. You will
finally see that I am, in truth, the superior one, the true alpha male. 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. All those popular kids who live such lives of
hedonistic pleasure while I've had to rot in loneliness all these years. They
all look down upon me every time I tried to join them, they've all treated me
like a mouse.
Gawker has the video on their site and the LA Times has a transcript, although we warn that the content is truly disturbing.
The rest of Rodger's videos portray the life of a depressed
and lonely young man. Videos simply titled "Being lonely on Spring Break sucks" and "Why do girls hate me so much?" portended
to the events that unfortunately unraveled last night. In fact, his videos were
so disturbing that a lawyer for the family told the BBC that the family
reported Rodger's YouTube videos to authorities weeks before. A video from
three weeks ago with the innocuous title of "Another sunny day in Santa Barbara" include
the description "I temporarily took all of my Vlog's down due to the alarm
it caused with some people in my family. I will post more updates in the
future."
One video posted yesterday ("Elliot Rodger, Lonely
Vlog, Life is so unfair") before his rampage shows Rodger wandering a
local golf course parking lot, a "place of refuge" for him to avoid
seeing couples in public that would stir up feelings of jealousy. The video
takes a sinister turn right at the end when he speaks of the lack of attention
he gets from women as an "injustice" and one that "needs to be
dealt with."
via LaList
According to his bio on Elliot Rodger's Official Blog, Rodger was
born in the UK
but grew up in Calabasas and Woodland Hills since the age of 5. It goes on to
mention his loneliness and difficulty fitting in to the social scene of Isla Vista . He only had one entry, dated April 16th of
this year, titled "Lonely In Santa Barbara":
“Being lonely in a beautiful place like Santa Barbara is truly a horrible experience.
As I've said many times, a beautiful environment can be the darkest hell if you
have to experience it all alone, especially while having to watch other men
walking around with their girlfriends. I wish girls were attracted to me. I
don't know why they aren't.”
Rodger's father, Peter Rodger, is a director who main credits
include working as a second-unit director on the first Hunger Games film
and as writer/director on the religious documentary Oh My God. Peter Rodger is married to Soumaya Akaaboune, an actress whose credits
include the romcom Playing For Keeps and the Iraq War film Green
Zone, where she appeared opposite of Matt Damon. Akaaboune appeared on
the French edition of The Real Housewives and she can be seen with
her husband and Elliot Rodger at a red carpet event for The Hunger Games in
this clip on YouTube (timestamped
to the segment).
Rodger's rampage last night left a total of seven injured
and seven dead, including the gunman himself.
Update: An attorney representing Rodger's family said
that law enforcement contacted after they expressed concern over this YouTube
videos found him to be "polite and kind" after they talked with
Rodger and took no further action, according to ABC News. The attorney also
said that Rodger was enrolled at Santa
Barbara City College
My thoughts and prayers goes out to the victims families and everyone affected.
