Thousands of people attended a memorial service on Tuesday night in the athletic stadium of the University of California, Santa Barbara, to honor the six students Elliot O. Rodger, 22, killed last week before taking his own life. With students and faculty struggling for catharsis, the university canceled classes for the day, and several businesses closed during the memorial event.
ISLA VISTA, Calif. — The police barricades and caution tape have been removed from this sunny college town after the rampage on Friday in which a lone killer wielding knives and guns left six students dead and more than a dozen people injured. But classes, and any semblance of normalcy, were halted at the University of California, Santa Barbara, on Tuesday as students and faculty grasped for some catharsis.
Across the street from the IV Deli Mart, where Christopher Ross Michaels-Martinez, 20, was killed when Elliot O. Rodger opened fire Friday night, a memorial wall had been set up where students wrote mournful and inspiring messages in chalk. On campus, students stood beside a bike path holding “Free Hugs” signs and shouting “Have a great day” to passing cyclists and skateboarders. Flags at all 10 University of California campuses flew at half-staff in honor of the victims.
Thousands of people attended a memorial service on Tuesday night at the campus athletic stadium, and several businesses closed during the event.
“I felt like I needed to come down here to have some closure,” said Adam Schnee, 22, a senior who is set to graduate in a few weeks. “A lot of people were gone over the long weekend, so to have everyone here together in one place and get it all out, and do it together, is going to be very important just to bring some normalcy back. It’s been a pretty hectic couple of days.”
Following the “Boston Strong” mantra that emerged in that city after the marathon bombings last year, one student after another wrote “Isla Vista Strong” and “Gauchos Strong” (the latter a nod to the school’s mascot) on the chalk wall, hoping to repair the sense of community. Others wrote “Misogyny Kills,” acknowledging the hateful and vengeful feelings toward women that Mr. Rodger expressed in a manifesto he left behind before embarking on his rampage and taking his own life.
Alyssa Hopper, a sophomore, said she had been in the IV Deli Mart when the gunshots tore through the store on Friday, striking Mr. Michaels-Martinez twice. A certified lifeguard, Ms. Hopper ran to his side and began performing CPR together with a few other students. It was not until she was trying to resuscitate his breathing that she realized he was a friend, someone she had met on her very first day at the university. He was still breathing, barely, when the paramedics arrived, she said, but he did not make it to the hospital.
As Ms. Hopper passed the deli on her bicycle on Tuesday, headed to see her therapist, she stopped and wrote a note to Mr. Michaels-Martinez: “Life is brief but LOVE goes on and on, RIP CHRIS.” At the bottom, she added, “I’ll never forget.”
Classes were scheduled to resume here on Wednesday, with final exams to begin shortly thereafter. Many students said they still did not feel ready to get back to work or to life as usual. Although the daily campus newspaperhas been covering the events in depth, a weekly campus publication, The Bottom Line, published an editorial explaining that it had purposely not covered the killings and their aftermath as part of an effort to allow the community — including The Bottom Line’s reporters and photographers — to heal.
One student, a junior named Kate Nollner, summed up the sentiments that many seemed to be expressing. “I just want to be with everyone,” she said. “I can’t really imagine trying to focus on class right now.”
Ms. Hopper, on the other hand, said she hoped class would help, at the very least, distract her from the trauma she experienced.
“I know my head is not all quite there for school,” she said. “I’m going to be grieving for a while, but at a certain point I will need something else to think about. I’m not going to throw in the towel on my academic year.”
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