The Washington Post has an arresting follow-up story about Richard Martinez, whose son was killed during the Elliot Rodger shooting spree, and who interrupted a police press conference this weekend to attack the NRA and call for further gun control.
“I don’t care about your sympathy. I don’t give a s— that you feel sorry for me,” Richard Martinez said during an extensive interview, his face flushed as tears rolled down his face. “Get to work and do something. I’ll tell the president the same thing if he calls me. Getting a call from a politician doesn’t impress me.”
Saying “we are all to blame” for the death of his 20-year-old son, Martinez urged the public join him in demanding “immediate action” from members of Congress and President Obama to curb gun violence by passing stricter gun-control laws.
Martinez, a defense attorney and Army veteran, told the Post that he plans further activism—which he says he hopes will include Rodger’s father Peter. The elder Rodger and his wife, Chin, had reported their son’s erratic behavior to police and were reportedly driving to his residence out of concern for his mental state on Friday night when the shootings occurred. Martinez has not yet spoken to Peter Rodger.
Read the rest of Slate’s coverage of the UC–Santa Barbara shooting.
