Associated Press
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — Violence again struck the community near the University of California, Santa Barbara, a year after a 22-year-old’s rampage left six students dead.
Two university students in their early 20s were shot Monday night after fighting with two men who came to their apartment just a block or two from campus, authorities said.
Neither of the suspects are students. One of them fled, and the other was held by neighbors until police arrived. James Joshua Taylor, 22, of Lompoc was arrested and taken to a hospital for head injuries he got in the fight.
The second suspect drove away in a white sedan, prompting a search of the campus and a lockdown of student dormitories for about two hours. People living nearby also were urged to stay inside until getting the all-clear.
Jose Guadalupe Gutierrez, 19, later checked himself into a hospital to be treated for unspecified injuries, Santa Barbara County sheriff’s spokeswoman Kelly Hoover said early Tuesday. The Goleta resident was connected to the crimes and arrested.
The victims, whose names were not released, received gunshot wounds that were not life-threatening and were being treated Tuesday at the hospital, Hoover said. One was shot once in the stomach, the other once in the chest, Hoover said.
Investigators have not identified a motive for the shootings. A handgun was recovered at the scene.
Gutierrez and Taylor could face charges including attempted murder, robbery and participation in a criminal street gang, Hoover said. It wasn’t immediately known if they have lawyers.
Although the violence had nothing to do with the rampage a year ago, it occurred in the same square-mile community of small apartments and houses that is home to thousands of university students.
Last May in the community of Isla Vista, Elliot Rodger killed six UCSB students and wounded 14 other people before killing himself.
Rodger stabbed his two roommates and their friend, then gunned down two women outside a sorority house and shot a man standing in a deli as he drove through town, firing a semi-automatic handgun and plowing into pedestrians with his BMW.
Rodger, who wasn’t a student or alumnus, had posted a manifesto and a series of online videos voicing contempt for everyone from his roommates to the human race but reserving special hate for two groups: the women he says kept him a virgin and the men they chose instead.
In one video, he said, “I’ll take great pleasure in slaughtering all of you.”
In a final handwritten journal entry on May 23, he wrote: “This is it. In one hour I will have my revenge on this cruel world. I HATE YOU ALLLL! DIE.”
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press