California gunman who killed six was director´s son

SANTA BARBARA: A student who stabbed three people to death and then fatally shot three more in a bustling California college town was the mentally disturbed son of a Hollywood director, police said Saturday.

At least 13 people were injured and the shooter, named by police as Elliot Rodger, 22, apparently killed himself after the knife-and-gun rampage on Friday in Isla Vista, near the campus of the University of California Santa Barbara.

Rodger´s father is Peter Rodger, an assistant director of the 2012 Hollywood blockbuster "The Hunger Games."

Police are investigating a disturbing video entitled "Retribution" apparently posted on YouTube by Elliot Rodger in which a man sitting in a car rants about women who rejected and ignored him for the past eight years, vowing to "punish you all for it.

"The bloodshed was just the latest in a string of gun massacres that have rocked the United States in recent years and is likely to trigger more passionate debate about gun rights.

Police had "contacts" with Rodger on three separate occasions before Friday´s killings, the first time in July 2013, Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown told a press conference.

Detailing how the horror unfolded, Brown said Rodger "repeatedly stabbed" three male victims at his apartment prior to the shooting rampage.

Once outside, Rodger targeted three women from across a street, killing two of them aged 22 and 19, Brown said.

Driving in his car, a black BMW, Rodger found his next victim, a 20-year-old student named Christopher Martinez, shooting him dead.

Police then went after him, Brown said, as Rodger shot indiscriminately at passers-by and drove all over the road. Rodger was shot in the hip in a shootout, before zooming off once more and hitting a cyclist, throwing him onto the hood of his car"The suspect´s vehicle then collided with several parked cars and came to a stop," said Brown, but Rodger "was obviously dead with an apparent gunshot wound to the head.

"Three nine-millimeter semi-automatic handguns were recovered from the BMW -- all legally purchased and registered -- and Rodger had dozens of unused rounds of ammunition.