Parents of victims in Elliot Rodger rampage sue police, apartment building for ignoring warning signs

Rodger killed six University of California Santa Barbara students and injured 14 others before killing himself, and parents of three of the victims say the police and the apartment building management failed to notice red flags.

The parents of three victims in a deadly killing spree in California last year have filed a lawsuit against the county, alleging that the ignored warning signs that the alleged killer was violent and unstable.

Elliot Rodger, 22, killed six University of California Santa Barbara students and injured 14 others by shooting, stabbing, and running over them before turning the gun on himself as authorities attempted to apprehend him, according to an Associated Press report.

The lawsuit, which was filed Monday in federal court, says that the county, in addition to the police and the apartment building where he lived, were negligent and had committed violations of the victims’ constitutional right to due process.

Rodger first killed his two roommates and a friend of theirs: David Wang, James Hong, and George Chen. They were stabbed dozens of times by a boar-hunting knife. It was the parents of those three individuals who filed the lawsuit.

They allege that there were numerous warning signs that Rodger was dangerous, including online postings where he ranted about women and complained of his virginity. Police later found three semi-automatic handguns and 550 rounds in his car, all of which were purchased legally, according to the report.

Rodger, who moved into the Capri complex back in 2011, had repeatedly gotten into conflicts with a number of different roommates, according to the lawsuit, which says that the apartment owners failed to conduct reasonable background checks before giving him Hong and Wang as roommates. The suit states that Rodger has conflicts with roommates that were “not only racist but also potentially violent and dangerous.”

In addition, the victims’ constitutional right to due process was violated by the sheriff’s department, as they had ignored “red flags” that Rodger was unstable, the suit alleges, noting that a mental health worker had seen Rodger’s YouTube postings and had alerted authorities.

The sheriff’s department declined to comment on the issue, and the AP was unable to get comment from representatives of the county or the offices of Capri and Asset Campus Housing.