Santa Barbara, CA, U.S.A.: Students hug before the start of a memorial service at Harder Stadium for the slain UCSB student.(Photo: Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY)
ISLA VISTA, Calif. – Thousands of people filled the campus stadium Tuesday to mourn and remember six University of California-Santa Barbara students slain in a bloody rampage.
They heard one grieving parent lead a chant, "Not one more,'' referring to senseless gun deaths.
Under a brilliant sky on a crisp afternoon, University of California system president Janet Napolitano said the campus community would mourn. But she said it would also remember and recover from the devastating losses and violence from the rampage Friday night by a Santa Barbara City College student who lived near the campus.
"As long as we hold them in our hearts, they are not gone,'' she said.
"We grieve together as a community of the University of California, and we will get through this together.''
Newly elected student body president Ali Guthy said the violence just off campus Friday night, which also left 13 injured and the rampaging gunman dead at this own hand, raises questions that can't be immediately answered by those who mourn.
"We have a spirit and resiliency within our community that can never be taken from us,'' Guthy said.
Six floral wreaths, one for each victim, were lined in front of a stage draped in black on the grass of the outdoor stadium where the UCSB Gauchos' soccer teams play. The stadium has a capacity of 17,000, and nearly all the seats were filled with thousands more on the grass field.
Richard Martinez, whose son Christopher Michaels-Martinez, 20, was shot dead while in the Isla Vista Deli that night, read statements from two other grieving parents, recalled his own son, and then called for grief to be focused on persuading politicians to take steps to limit guns.
"Not one more,'' he said. "It's intolerable. We all know it. We know what's happening here and it's unbelievable that we're at this point. Too many people have died, and it should be not one more.''
"How many more people are going to have to die in this situation before the problem gets solved? It's almost become a normal thing for us to accept this situation.... Life doesn't have to be like this,'' Martinez said.
He asked the assembled crowd to shout, "Not one more,'' and coaxed nearly the entire crowd to its feet while shouting the refrain.
"I want this to be so loud they can hear us in Washington, D.C.,'' he said.
Three of the victims were stabbed to death in the apartment they share with the gunman, while others were shot with semi-automatic gunfire or run down by his black BMW coupe.
University of California Board of Regents Chairman Bruce Varner, a graduate of UCSB, mourned the "indescribable agony'' of the loss of life. He added: "We are Gauchos, and that will never change.''
Cheng Yuan Hong, 20; George Chen, 19; and Weihan Wang, 20 were stabbed to death in the apartment they shared with Elliot Rodger, 22.
After those attacks Friday night, authorities say, Rodger went on a shooting spree starting at the Alpha Phi sorority house, where Veronika Elizabeth Weiss, 19; and Katherine Breann Cooper, 22, were killed.
Rodger then headed to the IV Deli Mart in nearby Isla Vista, where he killed Michaels-Martinez, a UC-Santa Barbara student majoring in English who planned to go to law school after graduating.
Rodger was later found dead, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
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