Every year, new stories appear in the media confirming that the world around us is far from safe. And it's not just about gangs of terrorists or organized crime. Often, only one person who has mental problems can pose a danger to society.
The “anti-hero” that will be discussed once again proved that an apparently prosperous citizen could become an armed serial killer. An American student by the name of Roger, a young man from a good family, fired directly at the college campus, where he studied. On May 23, 2014, a twenty-two-year-old young man, armed with a pistol, shot passers-by from the window of his own BMW until he died.
Shooting at Isla Vista, a college campus in California, caused a stir in society. Two dozen people killed and wounded by Elliot Roger, according to most citizens, were the result of free access to weapons and the inability of the police to recognize the threat before committing criminal acts. But could these events have been avoided? And was the crime Elliot Roger committed unexpected?
Parents
Elliot's father, the British Peter Roger, worked at home as a director, producer and actor. The career of Roger Sr. was developed in Los Angeles, where he moved with his wife and son in the mid-90s. The Hunger Games project brought Roger real fame, a film in which Peter worked as an assistant director.
At the time of the events in the suburbs of Santa Barbara, Peter Rogers was divorced for many years with his wife and mother Elliot, the Malaysian Lee Chin. Despite this, both parents provided their son with college and supported Elliot financially.
Biography
Before the tragic events, the life of the future killer took shape quite safely. Elliot Roger was born in 1991 in London, grew up in American Los Angeles. I went to a good school, went to college and lived separately from my parents in Isla Vista, a campus near which the respectable city of Santa Barbara is located. The student came to study on a black BMW, a gift from his parents. The young man, along with his father, attended Hollywood premieres, "star" events. In particular, Elliot appeared in photographs from the premiere of the popular Hollywood movie “The Hunger Games” (the film was released in 2012).
But the apparently prosperous biography also had a “downside”. Elliot was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome as a child, which is essentially a mild form of autism. Like most people with a similar disease, Roger was anxious, was withdrawn. Elliot had difficulty communicating with others, he was hard on people, could not make friends at school or college. According to the parents, the young man almost all his life had to be observed by a psychiatrist and receive treatment.
Live on the Web - Blogger and Hater
Communication problems Elliot Roger offset the vigorous activity on the Internet. In addition to accounts on social networks and on various sites, the student maintained his own blog, in which he repeatedly published negative statements. Children's insults, too modest, according to Elliott, the financial condition of parents, hatred motivated by racism - in his videos on YouTube, the student frankly, not hiding his name, spoke about everything that annoyed him.
But the main dissatisfaction with Elliot was caused by young girls. The young man said that his intimate life does not add up. Complaints that the girls ignored him were mixed in Elliot's messages with aggressive fantasies towards the opposite sex. Even people reading Elliot’s revelations on the Web called him “the future serial killer.” But for what reason did neither the police nor the family members see any threat in the messages?
Disturbing symptoms - what did the cops miss?
The police received signals in advance about Elliot’s aggressive messages on the Web - statements about this appeared almost immediately after the killings in Isla Vista. A month before the bloody events, Elliot's parents went to the police after watching their son’s video on YouTube. Government officials paid a visit to the student, but after talking with Roger, they did nothing. The police concluded that Elliot was a “polite and wonderful” person, and he promised to delete all the videos. At the time of the visit, weapons and cartridges were already hidden in the student’s home. Therefore, even a routine search and seizure of the killer’s arsenal could prevent the mass shooting of people.
After that, experts analyzing Roger's personality justified the police by saying that they mistook the future killer for one of the “network trolls” that did not pose a threat in real life. It is also known that this was not the only case when a future killer attracted the attention of law enforcement officers. Elliot Roger himself claimed the beating, and later on the theft for a small amount.
Last manifest
Elliot Roger published his last message on YouTube on the eve of the crime. In a seven-minute video entitled “Elliot Roger’s Revenge”, the student again spoke of loneliness, complaining that the girls did not pay attention to “such a great guy”, preferring others. Roger was indignant that at 22, he “never kissed” the girls, not to mention other things. At the end of the video, Elliot Roger announced his intention to “punish” all the girls by destroying them. The young man accurately indicated where and when he will "kill everyone he meets." In one night, the video managed to gain about five hundred thousand views, but its threats were again ignored. There was no reaction from the users who watched the message. In addition, the student managed to write and publish a farewell manifesto in which he outlines his desires and aggressive plans on 140 pages, intending to lure as many people as possible and deal with them.
Campus shooting
The inaction of others led to the fact that Elliot was able to carry out "retaliation." In the evening of May 23, Roger killed three people in his house - students of Asian descent. After the reprisal, the student got into his BMW car and drove at full speed through the streets of the campus of Isla Vista, shooting passers-by from the window. He managed to kill two girls, students of a local university, and injure another one. According to witnesses, Roger tried to get inside the house of the female student society, but the door was closed. Then the killer returned to the car and continued to shoot passers-by. Someone was injured with a pistol, someone was under the wheels of a BMW.
The campus massacre ended in a shootout between police officers and a distraught student. Trying to get away from the chase, Roger crashed into a car parked on the side of the road. The riot police who arrived in the broken BMW were already dead. Later, the press reported that the killer of six people committed suicide.
Life after the killings
By the evening of the next day, residents of the town of Isla Vista gathered in a local park in memory of the victims, and the Elliot Roger family officially apologized to all the victims and the families of the victims.
The calm California city of Santa Barbara was shocked by the massacre that took place in its vicinity. In the killer’s car, the police found three semi-automatic pistols and four hundred cartridges for them. Subsequently, it became known that all the weapons in the car of a mentally unstable student were legally acquired by him in three different stores.
The story of the serial killer sparked a spate of discussions in the press and on the Internet. The society was frightened and outraged that the police could not stop the offender, despite his public activities on the Internet. Often, requests were made to revise the laws on weapons. But the topic of aggression against women in modern society is still particularly actively discussed. The popular tag #YesAllWomen has appeared on the net - one of the most frequently used in discussions of sexism and misogyny.